10/02/2026
Sabbath: “Comfort My People”
Additional commentary for the Sabbath School Lesson
Consider the Title for this week Comfort My People What does this mean? How does God comfort?
• If you were dying from cancer, would compassionate friends be a comfort?
o Would pain medicine, nausea medicine, competent medical care be a comfort?
o But what would bring you the most comfort?—healing!
• If you were a prisoner of war would a kind guard be a comfort?
o Would good food, clean accommodations and clothing, packages and letters from home be a comfort?
o But what would bring you the most comfort? –would it be freedom and going home?
In this world of sin how does God comfort?
• Does God comfort with:
o loving family and friends
o food, clothing, shelter, financial resources
o healthcare or healing
• But does God’s plan to comfort, go far beyond this and if carried to completion result in eternal healing, and freedom from sin?
But what does it mean to be freed from sin? Is it a molecule, is it a bacteria, is it made out of matter? Sin is rooted in lies, in falsehood which breaks God’s design protocols for life resulting in a state of being that is out of harmony with God’s design and results in suffering, misery, pain; in other words, being in sin is not comfortable.
• Lies believed break the circle of love and trust
• broken love and trust result in fear and selfishness—this internal state of fear and selfishness is a painful state, there is no peace here, no comfort, no joy, and this state leads to
• all the acts of sin as people seek to comfort themselves with various human coping strategies that make the condition worse
• damages mind, body, character, relationships—this is a terminal condition
And there is no comfort or peace in this condition—but God comforts us. If we have diagnosed the problem correctly that sin is a condition of being out of harmony with God, filled with fear and selfishness, then we should be able to see God’s plan to comfort—to remove sinfulness and heal us?
How does God remove sin? How does God remove fear and selfishness from our hearts and minds and restore His law in our hearts thereby comforting us?
Jesus is key, without Jesus this could not happen—but what does Jesus provide that comforts us?
Jesus is the Word made flesh and as such Jesus is the truth made flesh—we see in Jesus the truth about God and what does truth do to lies? Truth destroys lies and sets us free.
So the first thing Jesus provides us is the truth. But if we accept the truth that Jesus reveals and reject the lies of Satan and are won back to trust in God—is that sufficient to remedy the sin problem? Or did Jesus need to provide us something more than truth in order to cure the sin problem and free us from fear and selfishness? So what more is needed to fulfill God’s plan to comfort in addition to bring us the truth and win us to trust? What else do we need? A new heart and right spirit, a new nature, sinless human character—can any of us work hard and develop this?
I love this description in the book The Desire of Ages:
The law requires righteousness,—a righteous life, a perfect character; [Why? For the same reason the law of respiration requires we breath. It is how life is built by God to operate, only in harmony with the law of love do we find comfort.] and this man has not to give. He cannot meet the claims of God's holy law. But Christ, coming to the earth as man, lived a holy life, and developed a perfect character. These He offers as a free gift to all who will receive them. [Jesus, as a human being, was tempted in every way like us, felt the pull of the survival drives, felt fear, but instead chose to love perfectly thus destroying the infection of sin in humanity and became our Savior. Heb 5:8,9. He gives us the gift of a holy life and perfect character.] His life stands for the life of men. [He becomes the second Adam. The new head of humanity. Our King—the living vine to whom we connect and receive life] Thus they have remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God. [We have remission of sins through forbearance, or grace, not through legal payment. Think of it as a child with sickness who gets the remedy to their condition, the past symptoms are of no account once they are well. Our past acts of sin are irrelevant once we are cured, healed, set right, no longer out of harmony with God, once His law is written upon our hearts and minds.] More than this, Christ imbues men with the attributes of God. He builds up the human character after the similitude of the divine character, a goodly fabric of spiritual strength and beauty. [Who builds up the sinner’s character? God build it up taking the life of Christ and reproducing it in those who embrace the truth and surrender their lives to Him in trust and cooperate with Him.] Thus the very righteousness of the law is fulfilled in the believer in Christ. God can “be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” Romans 3:26. Desire of Ages page 762.2
But if this is so, if it is sin that destroys our peace, creates a sickness in heart, mind, character, relationships that brings pain and suffering, if Jesus is God’s means to heal us, to set us free, then why is the Holy Spirit called the Comforter?
Also from The Desire of Ages:
The Comforter is called “the Spirit of truth.” His work is to define and maintain the truth. He first dwells in the heart as the Spirit of truth, and thus He becomes the Comforter. There is comfort and peace in the truth, but no real peace or comfort can be found in falsehood. It is through false theories and traditions that Satan gains his power over the mind. By directing men to false standards, he misshapes the character.[Oh do we see this happening in society today? Do you see false standards being proclaimed and accepted and do you see people becoming more Christlike or more debased, abusive, unloving, violent, fearful, selfish and controlling?] Through the Scriptures the Holy Spirit speaks to the mind, and impresses truth upon the heart. Thus He exposes error, and expels it from the soul. It is by the Spirit of truth, working through the word of God, that Christ subdues His chosen people to Himself. ... Desire of Ages 671.1
The Spirit was to be given as a regenerating agent, and without this the sacrifice of Christ would have been of no avail. [Wait, what? Do you believe this or not? What does this mean? Without the Spirit the sacrifice of Christ would have been of no avail. This is only true in design law, in how reality works. Jesus revealed truth that when accepted wins to trust and procured the remedy that heals our hearts—but that remedy needs application in our hearts, which is what the Spirit does. But if we accept Satan’s lie about God’s law that it is imposed, and then teach the lie that sin is a legal problem rather than a condition of being, and then teach the lie that Jesus died to pay our legal debt, and then teach the lie that salvation is getting a legal declaration of that payment made in the courts of heaven or in our legal record book— then all that could be made without the regenerating agency of the Spirit. The penal legal view is the wine of Babylon that intoxicates the world, it misrepresents God and keeps people’s minds and judgments impaired while they feel good about their salvation, yet they remain terminal.] The power of evil had been strengthening for centuries, and the submission of men to this satanic captivity was amazing. Sin could be resisted and overcome only through the mighty agency of the Third Person of the Godhead, who would come with no modified energy, but in the fullness of divine power. [Do you see why Satan wants to minimise the work of the Holy Spirit, to diminish or eliminate the Holy Spirit from our beliefs? Since Satan failed in stopping Jesus from coming to Earth as our Savior, and failed in his assaults on Jesus during His human life on Earth, Satan now works to stop us from receiving the Holy Spirit as the agency which applies the remedy in our hearts. He gets people to believe there is no Holy Spirit so they don’t even ask for this Third Person of the Godhead to transform them.] It is the Spirit that makes effectual what has been wrought out by the world's Redeemer. It is by the Spirit that the heart is made pure. Through the Spirit the believer becomes a partaker of the divine nature. Christ has given His Spirit as a divine power to overcome all hereditary and cultivated tendencies to evil, and to impress His own character upon His church. Desire of Ages 671.2
So how does God bring us comfort? By healing our hearts and minds and freeing us from living under the domination of fear, selfishness, guilt and shame.
What does the healing progression look like? It starts where the sinful progression began.
• The damage started with Lies believed breaking the circle of love and trust—so the healing starts with
• Truth believed destroying lies and winning us back to trust
o Jesus is the source of all truth—in Old Testament times Jesus is the member of the Godhead acting in human history thus giving evidence or truth
o Jesus is our Savior, our incarnate God who was tempted in every way like we are yet, as a human overcame the temptation of Satan, overcame the carnal drives of fear and selfishness and developed a perfect sinless human character
o The Holy Spirit is the agency that connects the dots of truth in our minds, brings together the historic activity of Jesus to win us to trust, to bring us to repentance
• In trust we open the heart and the Holy Spirit comes in and takes the victory of Christ and reproduces it in us so it is no longer our sinful fear-ridden selves but Christlike loving selves that live
o Thus the Holy Spirit applies the truth to remove lies and win to trust and the Holy Spirit writes the law of God, the character of God as lived out by Jesus in our hearts as we trust Him
• We choose to follow Jesus in practicing His methods and receive the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit that enlightens, transforms and enables us to love even our enemies, and we do acts of love, kindness, benevolence, self-sacrifice and in so doing
• We grow in godliness and are lights in this world witnessing His kingdom to others and receive eternal life
Is this process of being set free from sin, being delivered from fear and selfishness fun? Or can the process be agonising, painful, distressing before it is comforting? Why?
Because once there is brokenness of any kind, there are no pain free options.
Understand, we are born in sin and conceived in iniquity—we are not born guilty, under legal penalty, we are born terminal, with a condition we didn’t choose. But, this condition, if un-remedied will result in all kinds of symptoms (sins) which cause more sickness, pain, suffering and ultimately death.
God’s healing plan works to free us from fear and selfishness and restore us to eternal life, righteousness, but this requires we “die to self” it is a painful experience to face our own sickness of heart, to let the truth diagnose us, to stop trying to justify ourselves, to admit we cannot save ourselves and can only accept the remedy provided by Jesus. And applying the remedy, choosing the truth, breaking the old habits can also be initially painful. There may be physical withdrawal, their may be cravings, there may be relationships that need to be severed, there may be jobs that need to be terminated, there may be enterprises we need to withdraw from, there may be TV programs we need to stop watching.
But, as we follow God’s healing plan the initial pain fades away and we grow in godliness and are freed from fear, guilt, shame, the selfish drives lose their power and we experience real peace, real comfort.
Satan tricks the world with the suffering caused by sin, the pain, and the fear of more pain. The brokenness in the heart and in relationships that sin causes incites greater fear, greater distrust of others, which inflames the fear of getting hurt again, which leads to acts of selfishness and pleasure seeking, something to take away the pain in the heart and mind. This fear driven, me first, pain avoiding selfish drive to comfort ourselves is what causes all the evils in the world:
• all addictions are caused by people seeking to comfort themselves
• all human governments with their imposed laws and people seeking social justice through imposed laws and punishments are people who have been hurt, who are afraid, and who are seeking to make themselves feel safe, to comfort themselves through Satan’s kingdoms of imposed laws and imposed punishments
• all vengeance seeking is people who are hurt and afraid seeking to comfort themselves
• all totalitarianism, communism, socialism is fear driven people seeking to comfort themselves
• all abusing spouses abuse because they are afraid, insecure and seek to make themselves feel stronger in control by using power over those weaker
• all verbal attacks—the mean cutting and hurtful comments—come from those afraid who are seeking to protect themselves by taking down someone perceived as a threat
• all eating disorders are people who are filled with fear and insecurity and who are seeking to comfort themselves with food (bingers) or control (restrictors)
• all cheating, lying, stealing, embezzling, toxic waste dumping is done by people afraid, insecure and seeking more wealth, more stuff to comfort themselves and feel safe
• all violence against others is done by those afraid, insecure and seeking to comfort themselves, make themselves safe in some way
Understand the times in which we live. The four winds are being loosed and the enemy goes around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. A lion’s roar doesn’t injure, it incites fear. The enemy is filling the world with fear message after fear message, and the world is being driven into his arms as they seek to comfort themselves by applying his methods of rules, coercion, control, violence, intimidation, restriction of liberties.
At this time in human history God calls for a people to give the final message of mercy to the world— the message of the truth about His character of love. It is love that casts out fear, it is truth that destroys lies and frees minds and brings true comfort.
But love only exists in an atmosphere of freedom.
We must reject the imposed law systems of the world, we must reject the penal/legal theologies and come back to the truth that our God is the Creator of heaven and earth whose character is love and whose laws are the design protocols for life. Our Creator God has come to earth to free us from fear, free us from selfishness and comfort us by healing us with the truth and with a new nature.
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