In the sermon 'The Church is Your Mother' by Scott Brown, the church is likened to a nurturing mother, a metaphor drawn from Isaiah 66:7-14. The passage discusses a miraculous birth, symbolizing the establishment of the church, and emphasizes the supernatural nature of its creation. The church, personified as a mother, provides nourishment and support to its members, encouraging believers to feed one another spiritually, akin to a mother feeding her child. The sermon contrasts two groups: those who tremble at God's word and those who do not. This trembling signifies a deep reverence and results in spiritual nourishment and growth. The church is also depicted as a place of peace, consolation, and rejoicing, where believers find comfort in the community and in God's promises. The message highlights the importance of community, mutual support, and the transformative power of God's word, urging believers to embrace the church as a vital source of spiritual life and growth.

Isaiah 66 verses 7 through 14. Before she was in labor, she gave birth. Before her pain came, she delivered a male child. Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things?

Shall the earth be made to give birth in one day, or shall a nation be born at once? For as soon as Zion was in labor, she gave birth to her children. Shall I bring to the time of birth and not cause delivery, says the Lord? Shall I who cause delivery shut up the womb says your God. Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad with her.

All you who love her rejoice for her all you who mourn for her that you may feed and be satisfied with the consolation of her bosom, that you may drink deeply and delight with the abundance of her glory. For thus says the Lord, behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream. Then you shall feed. On her side you shall be carried and be dandled on her knees. As one with whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you.

And you shall be comforted in Jerusalem. When you see this, your heart shall rejoice and your bones shall flourish like grass and the hand of the Lord shall be known to his servants and his indignation to his enemies." Let's pray. Lord we thank you for this this time this morning that we can worship you and explore the depths of your wisdom and your your word we ask that you would guide mr. Brown as he comes and expounds on your text your word that you've given us and that it would touch hearts and change lives and help us to understand you more fully. Amen.

In this passage we have a marvelous opportunity to be shepherded by the Lord in how we ought to think about our times together as a church. How do we approach it? How do we think about the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ? And you know people have many different images of the church in their minds as a result of experience or culture But here in this passage We find a beautiful picture of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ And I I pray that this the Lord will use this passage to sharpen our understanding of how we ought to be together, how we ought to speak with one another, how we ought to look at one another, how we ought to consider the times that we have together in this local church here, because so much is revealed about how we ought to think about the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. We often go astray in our thinking about the church and about one another, but this passage I believe is such a helpful one to sort of sharpen and remind us about how we ought to think about and live in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now in Isaiah chapter 65 and 66, Isaiah is painting a picture and he's turning the picture to a picture of a mother giving birth and a child who is born and that child begins to nourish the others. And literally the church is the mother who feeds you. And all the people in the church are feeding one another as a mother feeds her child. It's a very interesting imagery and maybe really very startling but it's a picture of the birth of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ and the benefit that the members of the church have toward one another as they feed one another. And so Isaiah is also at the same time he's continuing to make a distinction between those who tremble at his word, who are deeply affected by it, and those who are outwardly testifying, but they are not inwardly moved by the Word of God.

They don't tremble at his word. They continue in their sin. They're not changed by the Word of God. They can offer sacrifices and hate their brother at the same time. It's not a problem to them at all.

So he's continued to draw this contrast of these two kinds of people. And there are those who choose in what he does not delight and then there are those who are delighted in him and they delight in the things that he delights in as well. Now we should think about Isaiah chapter 65 and 66 as a unit, as a final declaration that the prophet is making here. And of course, the voice in the last few chapters is God. We've heard Isaiah speak, we've heard various other voices in Isaiah.

In chapters 65 and 66, there is one voice, and it is the voice of God himself speaking to his church and And he's he's illustrating how he loves sinners in chapter 65 at the very beginning if you remember you have this picture of God is presenting a man and he's standing there, he's saying, here I am, here I am, look at me. And in verse two, he's holding out his hands and he's pleading and He says he stretched out his hands all day long to a rebellious people. He's saying to the Gentiles, here I am, don't you see me? Can't you see me in all the manifestations of my glory in the world? Then to his own people who are rebellious, who are religious, who have an outward form of religion, he's holding his hands out to them.

He's holding his hands out to blind people who are Gentiles on the one hand. And he's also holding out his arms in order to bring his corrupt and hypocritical people into his arms. He never stops calling to his people, at least in this image here, and he says that he will not keep silence and he will do his work. And So this is the picture that is here in chapter 65 and in chapter 66. Now another thing that I want to remind us of in terms of understanding chapter 65 and 66, Isaiah is actually answering, I'm sorry, God is answering a prayer that Isaiah prayed in chapter 63 and chapter 64.

Isaiah prays a long prayer, oh Lord, rend the heavens, come down, have you left me alone? I feel alone." He says he is speaking very personally and when we come to chapter 65 we find that God is answering that prayer. God is telling Isaiah how he is going to rent the heavens and there are various ways that he is going to do that and so he's actually answering a prayer. And then in chapter 66 He begins to speak about those who tremble at his word. You have this picture of these humble people who tremble at his word.

And again, he's identifying two groups, those who have a sensitive and longing heart to obey, who hang upon his word and they are profoundly affected by it, but there are those who do not tremble at his word and as a result of their not trembling at his word, they hate those who tremble at his word and they want to excommunicate them in many ways and get rid of them. And he speaks of how their worship has become a crime really, that they make sacrifices but they violate the law of God in other areas. And so this is the picture here. Now we enter into a section where motherhood is the image of God's blessing toward his people. Now he's speaking to his covenant people who do tremble at his word and he's explaining what it's like to be in a community of people who tremble at his word.

There's nothing more profitable for the human soul than to be in a community where people tremble at his word and when people tremble at his word it's a sign of revival. In fact I would I would I would like to just declare that whenever you have a true revival You have hunger for the Word of God. You have people hanging on the Word of God. It's what they want. It's what they need.

It's what they love. They cherish it and they squeeze every ounce of good out of every preached word, out of every read word, out of every prayed word, out of every word spoken, out of the mouth of the people of God. They hang on one another's words. They're literally drinking the milk of salvation from one another and from all the other means that God has given them. And that's the picture that we have here.

And so Isaiah is painting a picture of those who tremble at his word and in that picture the church is your mother who is feeding you that word. And so let's begin here. You have an outline in front of you and I've identified six elements of this instruction for those who tremble at his word, for those who have the church as their mother and who are drinking hungrily as a child drinks his mother's milk from the milk that comes from the work of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, which would include all the things that we're doing here today. So let's look at this first miraculous birth of the church in verses seven through nine, before she was in labor she gave birth, before her pain came she delivered a male child. So this first picture is of a mother and she's in labor and something dramatic is happening, something that is astonishing and unheard of, she has labor without pain and this birth is about to take place and it's a miracle because no woman has experienced birth without pain.

Part of the curse in Genesis chapter 3 verse 16 made it very clear that to the woman God said I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception in pain you shall bring forth children." This is a reversal of the curse. One aspect of the reversal of the curse is that there will be miraculous births, new births of people, and God is actually giving birth to his church here, and he's bringing forth children, and he's doing it supernaturally. This is not how it happens in nature. And so these verses are explaining here that the birth of the church will be supernatural. It will be impossible in the eyes of man.

All things are possible with God. But who is in labor here? Well, it's a woman who is in labor, but in verse 8 we learn that it's Zion who is in labor also, and he is also talking about Jerusalem in verses 10 and 11. Zion and Jerusalem are metaphors for the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. The book of Hebrews makes us very clear that Zion and Jerusalem are the church.

And so he's speaking about the birth of the church and also how the church nourishes the church. And it's all declared in this picture of a woman in labor giving birth. Now Who is the male child in verse 7? Good question. The male child is Christ, and I believe also the male child is Christ's body.

Here these metaphors run together, they overlap, And that's my view of this passage at this point, that the church is Jerusalem and the church that is being born is also the body of Christ. And So the male child may also be the church. The male child may also be the Lord Jesus Christ. I just want to suggest, I don't know, I think it's both, because they both fit. So Christ's body is the church.

He is the church. He is the male child and the church at the same time. This is why the Lord Jesus Christ speaks of his intimacy with the church. He is the church. You know when the apostle Paul was raging against the church and he was on the Damascus road.

The voice from heaven came and said, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Well, the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking to Saul. Who is Saul persecuting? He was persecuting the church. Jesus Christ so identifies with his church that when you touch the church you're touching his body.

When you slander the church you slander his body. And so you know this is why it's very dangerous to go against the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ views His Church as His own body. It is His own body. And He speaks of His unity with the Church. It is of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.

This is the intimacy and the unity of Christ and his church. So the church is your mother in this verse, and this man-child is born. And I think you can reasonably turn to Revelation chapter 12 verse 4 and read about this male child and the war of the devil against this male child. And you read in Revelation 12, 4 of the serpent, the dragon, his tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the Grop to the earth and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth to devour her child as soon as it was born She bore a male child who was to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, and her child was caught up to God and his throne. Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God that they should feed her there 1, 260 days.

And war broke out in heaven and so forth. Here you have a picture of this war against the seed of the woman who is the Lord Jesus Christ and his offspring, or another way to say it, and her offspring. Here in Revelation you have a male child who is born. In Isaiah You have the same thing, but you also have the church as a woman, as a mother, giving birth as well. So the metaphors run together in many ways, I think.

But if you look at verse 8, you see how astonishing this is. It's shocking. So therefore we read, who has heard of such a thing? Who has seen such things? This is God speaking.

He's saying, you've not seen this before. And shall the earth be made to give birth in one day? Or shall a nation be born at once for as soon as Zion was in labor she gave birth to her children and and here he's speaking about now giving birth to a nation that this it's like giving birth to the earth and to a nation, because it is true a new nation is being born, a holy nation separated to God. The Gentiles are part of that new nation that are being born again, and they're streaming from all over the earth, and they are being born again. But God here gives birth to a nation.

Mothers give birth to one child or maybe two or maybe maybe three or four or five. But not very often more than that. But here this is the birth of a nation. So this is why he says, who has heard of such a thing? It just has not happened.

Nothing like this happens in human experience. And So he's speaking of the birth of the nation of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it comes about suddenly, unexpectedly. She seems barren. She has no signs of giving birth at all.

There's nothing in outward appearances that would tell you that she's getting ready to give birth. This could be just an indication of the way that the world will look at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and the birth of the church. That Everything will look barren. There's no hope for it. The church looks barren to the world.

This happens to us as well. We look around in the church and we see no hope. We don't see the signs that we want. We're so small and we are so inadequate and we fall short in so many ways, and we think the church is nothing. Well, the church is nothing except for the power of the miraculous work of the Lord Jesus Christ to give birth to a glorious church.

But there is hope and the Lord does unexpected things. You know, you think about this for a moment just personally. Now Isaiah is speaking about the corporate birth of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ which will you know which will compose you know billions of people over time. But Think about yourself. How miraculous was your birth?

How reasonable was it that you were born again? Was there anything in you that caused you to be born again? No, God. God reached into your heart and he turned a switch in your heart that you could not turn. It was miraculous.

You were dead in your trespasses and sins. You had no hope and yet God in his mercy reached down and he turned your heart of stone into a heart of flesh and it is a miraculous birth and this is how you become a child of God you are born again And this is a picture of the curse in the Garden of Eden being reversed and removed, and the pain of childbirth is taken away. And One of the first manifestations we have of this is on the day of Pentecost when 3, 000 came into the church and then later 5, 000 came into the church. It happened in an instant and you know it can happen again. It can happen here right here in this community.

You might have you lost hope for your community or your neighbors or your family members, don't lose any hope at all because God, through His miraculous power, can turn a switch and 3, 000, 5, 000, 10, 000, 100 million can turn to Jesus Christ. Don't ever lose hope in the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Preach the gospel. You never know what will happen, but God has brought a power into the world that is unstoppable, and it's the power of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he's speaking of this very fact here.

Now he is speaking of Zion here in this verse. If you want to learn more about Zion turned, not right this minute, I'm just going to give you a reference to Galatians chapter four, verses 26 and 27. And here we learn that Zion is symbolic. Mount Sinai is symbolic. And in verse 26, we read, but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all." Here in Galatians we learn that the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ is the mother of us all, and it is Jerusalem and it is Zion.

So therefore he says, for it is written, rejoice, O barren, you who do not bear, break forth and shout, you who are not in labor, for the desolate has many more children than she who has a husband." Now no nation was ever born in an instant, But the nation of the people of God is born at an instant. And then by degrees it continues to expand like the mustard seed grows and grows and overcomes all that is around it. But in verse 9 we learn something extra about this birth. Verse 9, shall I bring to the time of birth and not cause delivery, says the Lord. Shall I who cause delivery shut up the womb, says your God.

Here he is saying that he will complete his work. He is not going to shut up the womb. The womb is going to continue to produce. It will not go barren. The gates of hell will not prevail against the church of Jesus Christ.

The barren will not be barren. Even the barren women are not barren. They can bear fruit for eternal life. This is the secret of the kingdom of heaven. You may not have children, but you can have spiritual children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and great-great-great-grandchildren for many generations.

This is the power of the gospel. This is the secret of the encouragement of Jesus Christ, even particularly women who cannot have their own children. Because the power of the gospel goes beyond the whole matter of childbirth. It is true that the kingdom of heaven does expand through the birth of children, but only when those become spiritual children of the Lord Jesus Christ. But God will complete his work even though the church may seem barren and he will keep his promises and the womb will not be stopped up there will be more and more and more and you may look around and say Lord where are your children and you may feel alone but but don't be fooled Don't be fooled by your own perception.

The promises of God are true. He will not shut up the womb. He will continue to bring forth children and many will be born again. And as we as we enter into our prayer week this week let's remember that. That God has given us a promise that many would be born again.

Let's work with the Lord, let's wrestle with the Lord to hasten the birth, that there would be more miraculous, instantaneous, unexpected births. How many unexpected births are there needed? How many unexpected births can happen? How many people have you given up on and it would be so unexpected So surprising so ludicrous to think that they could come Don't think that way because God will not shut up the womb He will keep the wombs producing And who knows if God would use you even this week to bring forth children for all eternity What a blessing it is to labor with God. We're entering into such a Strategic and important week in the life of our church.

Let's get very centered on it. Let's get focused Take your prayer guides read them over I would encourage you to read your prayer guide from cover to cover first today, sometime. And let's begin a process of binding our hearts together as the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the song that we, in one of the songs that we sang before we began the preaching here, there's the whole idea that one of the ways that we feed the church is by praying. We can feed by praying.

But the whole fact of the matter is that you must be born again by a miraculous and unexpected force that only God can supply. And this is the power and the beauty of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. God will cause conditions that will make this happen. But further, you know, he will cause conditions for a certain atmosphere in the church. Not only will a nation be born and children will continue to be born until that day when the Lord Jesus Christ brings everything to an end.

But there's a call to rejoice with the church. So the church is your mother, but not only that, the church is the center for rejoicing. We have to understand the church properly. We should be very careful not to make up our own understanding of the church. We should get our consciousness and our thinking and our activity about the church from God himself.

And here we're really plunging into various matters of the doctrine of ecclesiology and how the church has come to be and then how the church ought to be together as they live together. And what we find in verse 10 is rejoicing and there's a call to rejoice in the church. Rejoice with Jerusalem, this is a command, and be glad with her, a command. All you who love her, rejoice for joy with her. All you who mourn for her.

We often need an attitude adjustment regarding the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. We can easily become downcast as a result of our own perceptions of what is going on. We can be shaken out of our personal misunderstanding of how we ought to operate in times like that. And here there is this shaking out of perhaps a spirit of despondency and this is why there's a command to rejoice. It's a command for the church to rejoice with one another.

And this is what we should be doing today. You know, we come from so many different things that have happened during the week. And it can happen that we're not in the mode of rejoicing. But why has God brought us together? He's brought us together for many purposes.

And here in this verse, there are actually two purposes to rejoice. Three purposes to rejoice and to love and to mourn, those three things. He calls us into this rich relationship together in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ and He often needs to shake us out of our personal pity party and our pitiful state where we're walking around with long faces in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. So he gives a command, snap out of it. Snap out of your pity party.

Snap out of your offenses. Snap out of, you know, what you think is just so wrong and rejoice. And he speaks of it very clearly here. Often we need a wake up call and somebody needs to say, rejoice, oh Jerusalem. And so these are the words that we have here in front of us.

Now, it's probably true that until you can rejoice with the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, you will not be fed by her. When you are upset and fitful and angry and lost in your own sorrows, it's very difficult for you to feed. And often people who say, I'm not being fed, are actually people who are just fitful and fearful and angry and they can't feed as a result. If you're a critic of the church, if you're wounded by the church, if you're sitting in the church and you're rating the church according to your own inclinations and desires, you're going to go hungry. But rejoicing opens the door to a good feeding so that you can receive from the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So there is a command here and there are three types of divisions or dispositions in the command. Rejoice, love, and mourn. And so there are so many commands in the Bible for the church to rejoice. You know, we've said it many times, 22% of the days of the year in the calendar of Israel were given to rejoicing. So here we are, we have at least one week, 52 weeks out of the year that we really have been called together to rejoice and hopefully more than that.

But we should rejoice. Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad with her. So rejoice with who? With Jerusalem, with the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ and be glad with her. And to rejoice with the Church you first must identify with her and you must understand the nature of the Church if you're going to rejoice in the church.

You have to recognize what the church is. It is a nation of redeemed sinners, but those redeemed sinners still sin, and they see through a glass darkly. And often you can end up with no rejoicing in a church because the church has lost their mercy for sinners. They've lost their mercy for one another. And it's one of the most tragic things that can happen in a church is when you have a merciless church.

A merciless church is always an unhappy church. But here there's this command to rejoice with the church and delight in her and be glad with her and to rejoice with those who rejoice and and to weep with those who weep. We rejoice when she is prospering and we mourn when she is declining. It is appropriate to mourn as well in the church. But who is commanded to do the rejoicing?

Two kinds of people. Those who love her. If you don't love her, you won't be able to rejoice with her. And this is a call to love the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, to be reminded of how appropriate it is to love Jesus Christ's body and to remember how Jesus Christ himself has loved his church. He does love his church.

He gave himself up for her. We've read in Isaiah that Jesus Christ delights in his church and so we ought to have that same disposition to love her. Love for the church of the Lord Jesus Christ is one of the most important things for a family. Families need churches. Families need local bodies of people so that they learn how to love.

Because when you come into a church, there are unlovely things that happen to you. And there are unlovely people who see through a glass darkly. And I don't know how a family can properly learn how to love unless they become part of a local church. And they learn how to work through, how to have mercy and compassion, and to fulfill the commands of God to understand all the one and others that God has given the church because God has called people to love his church. And so that's why we have all you who love her rejoice and mourn.

And it's appropriate for us to mourn. To mourn over our sin together. Mourn over the weaknesses that we have. You know one of the problems with the new birth is that the new birth results in a baby. And in a local church, the new birth creates lots of babies in a church.

And babies are immature babies are demanding babies are self serving and self centered and they require care and time and sometimes you have to clean them and sometimes they interrupt your life and of course this is all part of God's plan to grow our love for one another that we would somehow learn how to love sinners the way that he has, by giving his life up for sinners and caring for them in such a way. And I know there can be times when you can be so discouraged with the church. You may become so discouraged with yourself. You may be hurt. You may have been wronged.

You may have fallen into some form of disobedience. And this is why, you know, the Lord Jesus Christ said, blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. And it's appropriate for us to mourn for our sins, and a church should mourn for his sins. And here's a strange fact of life in the church, and it's a strange fact of your own life as well. If you cannot mourn for your sin you cannot see the greatness of the mercy of God.

If you don't see the greatness of your sin, you'll never know the greatness of His mercy. If you don't see your depravity, you'll never understand how kind God has been. If you don't see your sins as great, then you will never see the greatness of your salvation. And your thankfulness will be low. He who has been forgiven much loves much.

And so it's right for us to understand some level of our sins. And I think as we think about our church we should always think about it in two ways. You should think about your own sins And we should think about our sins together as a church and how we fall short so that we don't become a proud church but we become a church that exalts in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the church is your mother who feeds you. But not only that, the church is the center of your rejoicing.

But not only that, the church is the source of consolation for your soul. This brings us to item three in your outline. There is consolation that comes from rejoicing with the church. This is in verse 11. That you may feed and be satisfied with the consolation of her bosom, that you may drink deeply and be delighted with the abundance of her glory so this this rejoicing with this birth and then this rejoicing happens in order that You see those words at the very beginning of verse 11, that.

So there's a result. The birth and the rejoicing results in something particular that you may feed and be satisfied with the consolation of her bosom. Now we're being led into this truth that we are all part of one another's consolation. And the church disseminates its consolation through the bosoms of her members. And so it's a strange metaphor, isn't it, that all are giving and drinking, and drinking deeply of one another, of the Word of God that is spoken through one another.

And I'll speak of this a little bit later, but it's far broader than that, because he's talking about the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ and how God uses his church to nourish and console his people. God has put his church in the world for this great purpose, and that you may feed and be satisfied. You know, like a child that is satisfied with its mother's milk. It's a picture of a child sucking on his mother's breast. That's the picture of the church.

And he is saying that this is how a church functions, that there's feeding that's going on in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are very few things as remarkable in the world to see as a child at his mother's breast and the peace, the consolation, and the satisfaction that he has in his mother's milk, and taking every advantage that he can. A nursing child is not indifferent about milk, and a child will become restless, and then even crying, and even desperate to get the milk. You know there have been many times you know in my days as a grandfather you know with grandchildren that I'll be holding one of my grandchildren who happens to be a nursing child. And all of a sudden, that child becomes disturbed.

That child becomes restless, inconsolable by anything that I can do. I can't bounce this child high enough I can't I can't throw this child, you know, sweetly enough I can't make a face funny enough to console this child. It's impossible I cannot do it And so the child that needs something is mother. And once that child is in the arms of her mother, of his or her mother, then that child is now at rest. So I know of this as a grandfather that a child can think of nothing other than his mother's milk and his mother's milk You know provides Consolation and he calls it here the consolation of her bosom And I would just like to suggest that the consolation of the bosom of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ comes from various directions.

It comes chiefly from the Word of God, the consolation of the Word of God, which is why the Apostle Peter in 1 Peter 2 verses 1 through 3 speaks of the church as like newborn babes and he says, therefore laying aside all malice and deceit, hypocrisy, envy and evil speaking, put those aside because you can't drink and you can't be fed until you put those aside. It won't happen. Are you starving? These things may have gotten in the way of your feeding. So he says, put these all aside, and as newborn babes desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.

So God uses his word. That's why David, as I was reading this last week in my devotions in Psalm 119 verse 50, he says, this is my comfort in my affliction, for your word has given me life. It's the word of God that brings comfort and affliction. Whatever affliction you're going through, turn to the word of God. Don't turn to your heart.

Don't turn to the psychologists and maybe don't even turn to a bunch of counselors. Turn to the Word of God and the Word of God alone. Trust in God. He says in verse 52 of Psalm 119, I remembered your judgments of old, O Lord, and have comforted myself. You know too often we turn to other things to comfort ourselves.

The world wants to turn to its drugs and its substances and its entertainments, but God says if you want comfort, turn to my word. This is how you'll find comfort in your affliction. I believe it was Charles Simeon who I was reading this last week on this passage where he speaks of God also appoints ordinances in public and private and social ordinances to draw us to Him so that we would drink, so that we would drink deeply. He's provided many things. We've done many of these things today.

We have sung songs. We have prayed. Later, we're going to take the Lord's Supper, and then we're going to fellowship. All these are means of grace. All these are means of feeding in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We've been brought together to do such marvelous things today, and he's speaking of it here. And these ordinances that God has given are represented by the breasts of consolation of a mother which is the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ which happens to be you and I, all of us together as a gathered Church. We have been gathered together to comfort and console one another as we rejoice and as we mourn for our sins. All of these things. You know the Lord Jesus Christ speaks through his people.

And We learn in Isaiah 54 that He speaks a word in season to those who are weary. And God has brought us together for this purpose, that we would have a word in season to those who are weary, that we would come with the milk of the Word of God, the milk of consolation, and that we would prioritize that above all other things that we do here today. We've been called to such great things. Now there are many ways that God comforts. God Himself is a comforter.

In 2 Corinthians 1-3 we read of Him as the God of all comfort. In Luke 2 He's the consolation of Israel. In Hebrews chapter 6 He has strong consolation for those who turn toward him. There is nothing like the consolation of turning to the Word of God. Whatever issue you are facing, the Word of God is your consolation.

There's the love of God that is the consolation, which is spoken of in Philemon chapter 7. You can console yourselves in the love of God. The Holy Spirit is the comforter in John 14 verses 14 and verse 26. There's the consolation of his refuge. There's the consolation of his people like Barnabas.

Barnabas was called the son of consolation or the son of encouragement. God has given a particular gift of encouragement to different people in this church. It's a blessing. And he gives various gifts to people in the church to be sources of consolation and comfort and joy to his people. He's done that as a result of his love.

He gives people like Paul and Silvanus and Timothy to the Church of Jesus Christ. In 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 7, the apostle Paul says that Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy were like a nursing mother. How about that? You know, you think about the vision of manhood, leadership in the church. Well, part of that vision of leadership includes that you're like a woman.

You're like a nursing mother, OK? You're not just Rambo, pastor. You are like a nursing mother as well. And so he says here, but we were gentle among you just as a nursing mother cherishes her own children. So affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives because you had become dear to us." And here, these ministers were like nursing mothers.

So there are various images and metaphors that God gives. They're not exclusive of one another. They're inclusive, they overlap, and they sometimes contradict as well in our own minds. But it's because we don't understand them completely is why they seem to cross over one another. There's this idea of drinking deeply and delightedly that you may drink deeply and be delighted with the abundance of her glory.

This is your mission today, to drink deeply and to give graciously of the milk of the word today. And God has given us a day of delight that we would delight in the most delightful things in the world. But this is your mission, that you would drink deeply, in other words you would be able to receive from your brothers and sisters. That you wouldn't be judging one another and hating one another, but that you would love one another and receive from one another. Don't wait for the perfect church member to receive from.

And please, please do not wait for the pastor who speaks everything perfectly before you can receive from him. Please don't do that because even pastors see through a glass darkly and even pastors need mercy and so do you and you will not be able to receive from one another or from the pastors of this church if you have no mercy. If you have no mercy, you will not drink. But God has called us together to drink and He has given us one another. Remember in Isaiah chapter 40 where God is speaking to the people?

And again, it's the voice of God in chapter 40 and He's saying, comfort, comfort my people. He's talking to the people. He's saying, you comfort my people, you comfort my people, you comfort my people. That's what you should do. Speak comfort to Jerusalem and cry out to her.

This is part of the glorious work of the Church of Jesus Christ. So there you would have a place that you can go where people are going to speak comfort to you and There'll be many of them with many different kinds of gifts It's a picture of the beauty of the Church of Jesus Christ how God has arranged it through a miraculous birth and then giving gifts to his church so that they might feed one another in his own church. You know the early church father Cyprian in the third century, he made the famous statement, no one can have God as his father who does not have the church as his mother. And you know, John Calvin spoke of this, I know several years ago we read through the Institutes and we ran across this the section in the Institutes where John Calvin speaks of the church as your mother, and he speaks of how God gathers sons together, how He nourishes them as infants, but He's not only the Father of the Church, but he is also the Mother of the Church. And God gives this ministry for infants, and he speaks of it this way, The heavenly Jerusalem which derives its origin from heaven and dwells above by faith is the mother of believers.

For she has the incorruptible seed of life deposited in her by which she forms us, cherishes us in her womb, and brings us to light. She has the milk and the food by which she continually nourishes her offspring. This is why the church is called the Mother of Believers, And certainly he who refuses to be a son of the church desires in vain to have God as his father. For it is only through the ministry of the church that God begets sons to himself and brings them up until they pass through adolescence and reach manhood. This is a title of wonderful and highest honor.

So God uses all of this milk that's here in this room that's derived from the milk of the Word of God in order to grow us up to bring us as Calvin said into manhood and into womanhood this is how he grows us up through one another This is why a person who is not intimately involved in a local church is a complete contradiction to what the Bible speaks of about what it means to be a child of God. And if you don't have the church as your mother, you don't have God as your father. And I often run into people who say, I don't go to church, I have church in my home. And I almost always say the same thing, then you must not believe in God. You must not have God as your father.

If you don't love the people of God, how can you say you love Jesus Christ and his offspring? If you love Jesus Christ, you'll love his people and you'll want to be with them. If you don't love him, you won't want to be with them. So the church is your mother who feeds you, but not only that, the church is the center of your rejoicing, but not only that, the church is the source of consolation of your soul, but not only that, the church is also the place of peace and a source of peace. And that's what we read in verse 12, because there's a peace that flows from rejoicing with the church.

For thus says the Lord, behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream. Then you shall feed. On her sides shall you be carried and be dandled on her knees." So the church is designed by God to be a source of peace. You know, when the Lord Jesus Christ said, my peace I give unto you, not as the world gives. He was speaking of the various manifestations of his peace, and his church is an extension of the distribution of his peace.

And so in verse 12, we say that he will extend peace to her like a river. Now, think about that language for a second. If you need something extended to you, it means that you didn't have it in the first place. And so it's Jesus Christ who goes to the unpeaceful person and he gives that person his peace. He extends his peace to them like a river and notice and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream.

Now it seems to me the metaphors are all mixed up here because the piece is like a river but the Gentiles are also like that river flowing. But here's what can be known without question. This is an endless supply of a river that never stops flowing. And this means that there are fresh streams daily and moment by moment in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is abundance there.

There are rivers of living water that are there. The Lord Jesus Christ said, out of your innermost being will flow rivers of living water. And you know, we know that the peace of this world always dries up. It'll always leave you high and dry, but not the river of Jesus Christ. Drinking from His river is like drinking from an ever-flowing stream.

The supply never ends. It never dries up because there is a river. There's a river from God and it never stops flowing. We have fresh compassion, fresh peace every day. It's a constant flowing.

Now notice the language in this verse. Then you shall feed. Then you shall feed. So there is strength and nourishment from the feeding. And then you are carried.

On her sides you shall be carried again all of this is wrapped up in the imagery of a mother with a with a nursing child and And she's being carried you know how You know how you carry a baby on your side, on your hip. That's the idea. We've encountered this matter of carrying in Isaiah before, haven't we? That he carries you on eagle's wings and he carries you and he carries you like a shepherd, carries, and it's this very same imagery of God, and then dandled on her knees. This one is very striking.

This one is very striking. I mean, remember, he is speaking of God's church and how they are with one another. And they're bouncing one another on their knees. So now Isaiah gives you a picture of the church where the people and yes even the adults are bouncing on one another's knees. They're delighted in one another and they have drawn one another toward themselves.

And they are like a child being bounced on the knees, played with, to play that we would be, I don't know if the word playing is actually the best word to use, but you get the idea. It's a very tender thing to put a child on your knees and to smile at them and to tickle them and to play horse games on your knees. But this is a picture of the church. So the picture of the church is that she's your mother who feeds you, but not only that, she's the center of your rejoicing, but not only that, she's the source of your consolation, and not only that, she's a place of peace like a river and not only that she's a source of comfort that's verse 13 as one whom his mother comforts so I will comfort you and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem." Now the Lord Himself speaks, He says, I will comfort you. Now he has been talking about how the church is working with itself.

Now he speaks for himself. He says, I will comfort you. Not only will you have consolation from one another, but I personally will comfort you. But how does he do it? He does it as one whom his mother comforts.

And then he says, and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem. So God will be comforting his people in Jerusalem in the church. And so we have these dual sources of comfort as Christians. We have God himself and we also have the church of the Lord Jesus Christ that is a source of comfort. He personally comforts.

He is the God who comforts you in your affliction. But God likens himself as a mother. We should recognize what is happening here in the metaphor. He has already said in chapter 49 that a woman may forget her nursing child, but he will never forget his people. But here the mother is a picture of compassion in this image and not only is a husband an illustration of Christ's love for the church, now a woman is a portrait of God's love.

God uses both metaphors to explain himself and mothers are pictures of God. Man alone is not enough to encompass the picture of God as comforter and the one who loves, like Christ, loves the church. And so he gives us this metaphor as a mother because it's not enough to just think about a man as a comforter. You must think of a woman and God is as a woman You know it's interesting if you go back to Genesis and you you read that that the wife is the helper of the man the Ed Zare and if you look up that word for helper, that the wife is the helper of the husband, you find that that most of the time that word is used for God. That God identifies himself as the helper, but he gives a wife as an illustration of himself.

A wife is also an illustration of God in her family. Because God is our helper and God puts a mother in the Bible to paint a portrait of himself. He exalts women in that sense. And he likens himself as a woman, as a nursing child, as a mother, as a helper. Because women declare the glory of God as well in their own femininity.

And then there's a strengthening effect of the consolation of the church in verse 14, the final verse in this section. When you see this, in other words, when you see the people of God feeding upon one another and as you see God consoling his people, Then you will see this, verse 14, and your heart shall rejoice and your bones shall flourish like grass. The hand of the Lord will be known to his servants and his indignation to his enemies. There's this full-orbed strengthening effect that clarifies everything for the Christian. And this is a picture of life in the church.

And your bones begin to flourish and the power of God is known and even God's indignation toward his enemies is known when the church does this kind of thing. And all of this is to answer a prayer that Isaiah prayed where he said, Lord, rend the heavens. And now God is saying, here's what it looks like. I'm going to make it a miraculous birth. It's sudden.

It's unexpected. And I'm going to bring people together and they're going to feed one another and I'm going to feed them. And they are going to be like a nursing mother they are going to have such tenderness toward one another I'm rending the heavens I'm loving my people and I am going to rescue them through the church that I will establish And so prayer is being answered even today, as God has brought his church together to do this. Now let me give some applications. First of all, the Bible has a very high view of women.

God says that he's like a mother who is consoling her child and she is a picture of the church. And a high view of women gives you a high view of the church. It's quite possible if you have a low view of women you might have a low view of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ as well, which would be a disaster. But this church is your mother who feeds you. She's the center of rejoicing.

She's the source of consolation. She's a place of peace like a river. She's a source of comfort, and she's a source of strength to show you the manifold glory of God. And she's a woman and you're a woman and I'm a woman too in that sense. But you're not just a woman, You're other things as well.

You're a flock. You're a building. You are a nation. You're many things, but you also must have the quality of a nursing mother toward one another because there are many metaphors that were given to enrich us in the life that we live together in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. The second thing I'd like to speak regarding application is remember the life-giving power of trembling at His Word because because he is speaking about those who tremble at his word.

Those who tremble at his word are like nursing mothers. There are insights here into the fear of God. When you tremble at the Word of God, because you fear God more than anything else, there are so many blessings that flow from it. These blessings that flow from the fear of God, from trembling at His Word, are enumerated here, and of course one of those blessings is the nourishing and the feeding that takes place in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ through tender-hearted nursing mothers. The Bible says much about the fear of God.

That riches and honor are part of the fear of God. By Humility and the fear of the Lord are riches and honor thorns and snares are the way of the perverse who guards his soul Will be far from them happiness is part of the fear of the Lord God promises happiness to those who fear him happy is the man who fears the Lord but he who hardens his heart will fall into calamity. The Bible says there's reward for those who fear the Lord. He who fears the Lord, he who fears the commandment will be rewarded. Now the Bible is full of promises for those who fear God.

You've just encountered one of them. When you tremble at his word, he makes you a different kind of person and he makes the people in the church different kinds of people. When they tremble, they feed one another like a nursing mother. These are the blessings of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And let me just make this final appeal.

Let's make the Word of God your trembling. Let's make the Church our mother. And let's feed one another as a nursing mother tenderly feeds her offspring. And if you make it your occupation to tremble at the Word of God, here's a promise, you will find what has just been written here. You will find satisfying church life.

If you tremble at His Word, you'll have your focus on Him and what He's feeding you and how He's growing you and changing you, how he's bringing you to manhood and into womanhood because of the Word of God that is brought to you by himself, by his holy written Word, and by his people whom he's called by his name. And so Isaiah brings us into this beautiful vision of life in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, where everyone is a nursing mother and everyone is a drinking son or daughter, consoled by the pure will of the word. Would you pray with me? Lord, we thank you for these astonishing images that you've given to us to help us to know how to live, how to think about our lives, and how to think about this very church that you placed us in. I pray oh Lord that you would fulfill it all among us.

Amen.