STRENGTH RENEWED
F. C. Mutton
The matter of divine comfort has been before us, beloved. What a wonderful thing is the power and tenderness and resource of divine comfort. “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God”—we are His people, His treasured possession bought at such a cost, redeemed. At a time like this divine comfort comes to us, as it has already come in the prophetic word, the Father looking upon us and knowing every feeling and pressure and dispensing through His word His effective resources that we might be comforted with divine comfort.
I believe the latter part of this chapter links with what has just been before us. It brings before us in a most affecting and powerful way the truth as to our God, “the everlasting God. Jehovah, the Creator of the ends of the earth”. He “fainteth not nor tireth”. That is our God. That is what He is in Himself and that which, by His Spirit, He would impart to us, because these glorious statements as to our God are brought forward to impress upon us that all that He is is available to us to draw upon in the hour of our need and the hour of testing.
“There is no searching of his understanding” what a comforting statement that is, dear brethren. He understands. There are experiences through which our beloved brethren are going which no other can fully enter into or understand, deep as our affections and compassions are, but there is no searching of His understanding. How precious that is! He is our Father, who draws so near to us in the fulness of His understanding, but there is also His power to communicate what He is Himself to us in the circumstances in which we are.
So it adds “He giveth power to the faint; and to him that hath no might he increaseth strength”. Our brother has referred to Paul’s experiences, experiences of extremity and of weakness, of being in situations to which there seemed to be no apparent issue. “He giveth power to the faint; and to him that hath no might he increaseth strength”—dear brethren, there are times in which it is good for us to feel our weakness, to feel the frailty of what we are, the frailty of these vessels in which we are. What an advantage there is in utter dependence and, no doubt, as Paul found, we are at times weakened in order that we might experience, and be available to experience, the grace of Christ and the strengthening of divine power. Such an experience may come to us even when we are young. There are beloved young people
directly affected by the sorrow that is upon us all. It says, “Even the youths shall faint and shall tire, and the young men shall stumble and fall”. How real these experiences are, but they are divinely timed, divinely ordered, so that, maybe when young, we might apprehend in a way that may stand us in good stead so long as the Lord leaves us here, that our resources of strength are outside of ourselves in God and in Christ and in the Holy Spirit.
And so it says, “But they that wait upon Jehovah shall renew their strength”. We pray that this may be the experience of our beloved brethren at a time of such pressure and the weakening effect this has upon us. May they renew their strength and prove that in a new phase of life and experience fresh resources of strength are available, as the hymn says, (verse 8 of Hymn 76). May we all be going forward experiencing the power and resource available for those that wait on Jehovah day by day and draw upon His fresh daily provision.
Then we have what would powerfully relate to our brother’s word—“They shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not tire; they shall walk, and not faint”. Thus we are maintained in every sphere; maintained firstly in relation to the highest things, the glorious truth opened up in Ephesians, the service of God, and all that is for His own pleasure, renewed in strength to mount up in relation to them, but strengthened too for our responsible paths which we must resume and continue—“They shall run, and not tire; they shall walk, and not faint”, and this is surely our desire for our beloved and honoured brother. We think of his long course; may it be continued now with a fresh experience of divine strengthening and power and encouragement—strength renewed, mounting up with wings, as eagles. Oh the greatness of
these resources! May we experience them very powerfully, beloved brethren, for His glory.
Amen.
Words at burial of Mrs. J. A. McKay, Sunbury, at Richmond
29 October 1980