The Holy Spirit, Who Becomes Our Comforter
1Then I returned and saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold, the tears of those who were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter. 2Therefore I praised the dead who have been long dead more than the living who are yet alive. 3Yes, better than them both is him who has not yet been, who has not seen the evil work that is done under the sun. 4Then I saw all the labor and achievement that is the envy of a man’s neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind. 5The fool folds his hands together and ruins himself. 6Better is a handful, with quietness, than two handfuls with labor and chasing after wind.
Everyone born into this world must live a hard life, whether they want to or not. People have to work for food, clothing, and shelter, and they have to fight evil spirits to reach heaven. With life so full of pain, Solomon said there must be a comforter to shelter it and give it hope. People run into trouble for all kinds of reasons, but Job’s case was unusual: he met suffering he could never have imagined because God had boasted of his faith before the angels and Satan.
Satan, hearing God’s words, slandered Job, claiming that his faith was strong only because God had blessed him so richly. God knew Job’s faith was genuine, and to prove Satan wrong he gave Satan leave to take away everything Job owned. How deeply God must have trusted Job to say such a thing! I can only envy him.
To bring Job down, Satan laid on him suffering no human being could bear. But the outcome showed Satan that Job’s faith had never rested on his wealth. Job did not waver, because he believed that God is the almighty King and that there is an eternal kingdom. In the end, it is people who keep faith to the last like this who receive the blessing.
Unlike Job, some people live for the world, as Doeg did. Doeg informed King Saul that the priest Ahimelech had helped David. On the king’s orders, Doeg killed eighty-five priests who wore the linen ephod, and he went further still, putting to death the men, women, and nursing infants of the city of the priests, along with their cattle, donkeys, and sheep. Doeg betrayed God to get ahead in the world. There are others, like the apostle Paul, who willingly laid aside power and honor for the gospel of Christ and took up the calling to preach as though they were carrying the cross.
Human lives truly take many different paths. Those who, like Doeg, received eternal punishment because of their greed had no comforter to wipe away the tears they shed under God’s judgment. But those who give themselves to the gospel, like Job and the apostle Paul, have the Holy Spirit comforting them at every moment, and he and the angels keep them safe until they enter the Kingdom of God. To the people of the world, the fierce spiritual war between the saints and Satan may look like nothing but terrible suffering. Those led by the Holy Spirit, however, do not lose heart, because they know for certain that their suffering is a spiritual battle.
Whatever its cause, suffering is painful and frightening; that much is true. In a dark world where no one can see a step ahead, trouble that strikes us unprepared leaves no way of escape, and that alone makes it a torment. Job had a faithful heart, but being human, he was so shaken by the loss of his property, his family, and his health that he cursed the day he was born. His trial was so hard to bear that he said none of this suffering would have come if his mother had never given birth to him. No one on earth wants hardship. But God may permit suffering in the lives of his people as a way of making his children grow. We need to understand that if it will help his people grow, he does not hesitate to use it, whether it is a storm, a rod, or a fragrant flower.
Because a deep-rooted tree is not shaken even by fierce winds, its blossoms are lovely and its fruit is rich. A deep spring does not run dry even in drought, and its water flows on to become a stream, then a river, until it reaches the sea. That is why a deep-rooted tree neither fears nor resents the wind that tosses its branches as it passes. Since we may meet strong winds anywhere in the world as long as we live, in the end it is our faith that determines the depth and the season of our suffering.
Are you well prepared? Or is yours a faith that would be torn up by the roots at the lightest touch, like a passing breeze? The wind brings the rain a tree needs to grow, and in the same way even God’s people can mature only through hardship. How long the suffering lasts, and how quickly we grow once it has passed, will depend on the faith we have been living by. A tree cannot move elsewhere just because it dislikes winter. Only by enduring the winter where it was planted can it welcome the spring. So it is with us: we can grow only by standing firm in the place where God has put us.
To make his kingdom rich and strong, Solomon laid heavy burdens on his people. Listen to the exchange between the people and his son Rehoboam, who grew up watching such a father, and you can see how badly Solomon had lived.
1 Kings 12:4
4“Your father made our yoke difficult. Now therefore make the hard service of your father, and his heavy yoke which he put on us, lighter, and we will serve you.”
Jeroboam had fled to Egypt to escape Solomon, but when he heard that Solomon’s son Rehoboam had become king, he came up to Shechem. Jeroboam asked Rehoboam whether he knew how heavy a yoke his father Solomon had laid on them. That yoke was the building work. The greater Solomon’s power grew, the more the people had to suffer under harsh labor, out of sight.
Residences had to be built for Solomon’s wives, a thousand of them, and the more he dealt with the nations, the more the people were pressed into forced labor. Jeroboam told Rehoboam that his father had made the people’s lives hard, but that if he would lighten their heavy yoke, they would serve him faithfully as king. When people cry out in such pain that they come pleading like this, Rehoboam ought, of course, to have looked into their hearts and granted their request. Instead, foolish Rehoboam refused, saying that he would take the work further than his father ever had and could not do as they asked.
It was a fine opportunity to win the people over, but Rehoboam answered foolishly and lost his chance to gather them to himself. Had he been wise, he would have become a true comforter to a people worn out by Solomon. If he had soothed their hearts, telling them he could see how much they must have suffered under his father to come to him with such words, the united kingdom would not have fallen apart, and he would have been remembered forever as a kind and good king. This shows that in human relationships, what matters is that the good character of each person be the foundation.
In my experience, people of good character, even if their faith is still weak, do not easily change heart once they come to trust that God is their protector. Their thankfulness toward the God who guards them does not waver.
Jeroboam, who had appealed to Rehoboam, had been in charge of all the building work. He was the one who had stood against Solomon on the people’s behalf, opposing his reckless expansion abroad, his taxes, and the forced labor he imposed. After Rehoboam’s disappointing reply, Jeroboam saw no hope left, so he set up a northern kingdom with those who followed him and became its first king. Up to that point, Jeroboam clearly understood how the people suffered. But once he took power, he too committed the very same sins as Solomon. It seems there are few who, like King David, hold great power on a foundation of good character, serve God faithfully, and rule their people with gentleness.
Though Solomon had made his promise directly to God, he used marriages with foreign peoples as a policy to extend his influence abroad. The idols his pagan wives and concubines brought with them drew Israel deeper and deeper into corruption. As the years went by, Solomon watched his youth, his passion, and his ambitions, which had once seemed as if they would last forever, slip away, and he felt that all that had gone before was vanity, worth nothing at all.
Looking back, he regretted that, like a beast with no spirit, he had cast aside the word of God to gain more power and wealth. He felt utterly wretched when he remembered how, for the sake of his own honor and power, he had mistreated the weak and the poor instead of caring for them. He repented of the wrongs of his past, of taking the side of the overseers who caught and cruelly abused people fleeing forced labor they could not bear. But by now there was no undoing it.
With what heart are you living now? I am asking whether you, like Solomon, are throwing away holy faith and good character so as not to lose what you hold tight in your hands. What you said and did today is who you are; it is your life. You may excuse it as a mistake, but God will look at your words and deeds and judge your life by them. Take care, then, never to abandon holy faith and good character.
Someone once asked me a question. They wanted to know what Job’s three friends should have said to him in his suffering—what would have been right in God’s eyes and given him real comfort. Clearly the friends came to Job with the good intention of comforting him. I answered that if they had loved Job, the comfort God would have counted good was not words but sharing what they had with a man who could no longer feed, clothe, or house himself. Comfort in words alone, without sharing what we have, is no comfort at all. Words without sincerity are pretense, and faith without deeds is nothing but a religion that looks fine on the surface.
Seeing how God was angry with Job’s friends, we know that we must share what we have received from God and live for others rather than ourselves. If the three friends, who were better off than the suffering Job, had stood by him as his protectors and helped him, God would have filled their lives to overflowing. Just as God appoints every leader to bring comfort, he appointed Solomon as Israel’s comforter and protector, but Solomon never became a kind source of consolation to his people. Too late, he regretted a life spent looking to the world rather than to God, and because there was no longer any chance to ease his people’s pain, his remorse only grew deeper.
John 14:16
16I will pray to the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, that he may be with you forever,—
The Counselor, who will be with us forever, not only in this world but after death as well, is the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is our Comforter, our Helper, and the Spirit of truth. God’s people do not despair, however fiercely the powerful of this world persecute them, and the reason is that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, is with them. Those in power treat the saints with contempt, thinking they have no one to protect them. The forces of darkness abuse and lash them spiritually, but they cannot break them, for the Holy Spirit is with them as their Comforter and Protector.
The Holy Spirit is God the Holy Spirit, present within the “us” when God spoke of making man in our image. We can call this a privilege that God’s people enjoy. It was the Holy Spirit who came down like a dove when Jesus was baptized, and it was the Holy Spirit who strengthened him with all his might when he accomplished the work of salvation on the cross. That same Holy Spirit, who is God, is with you now as your protector, and he is your Comforter so that you can overcome every hardship you face.
In John 16:13, Jesus says that when the Spirit of truth has come, he will guide you into all truth. He meant that because we cannot understand the truth without the Holy Spirit, we cannot fully meet Christ. The Holy Spirit has taught us that Christ atoned for our sins, and has taught us about sin, righteousness, and judgment. We are able to enter heaven because the Holy Spirit has led us.
No one, however good, can be a true comforter to another person. Even the parents who gave me birth cannot understand the deepest places of my heart, give me spiritual comfort, or help me hold on to the truth to the end. But the Holy Spirit is a true Comforter at all times and in every place. Since it is so great a blessing to have, in this harsh world, a Comforter who is always on my side, I hope you will lean on the Holy Spirit in faith.
Ecclesiastes 3:4
4a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
Rather than working to accomplish something, people waste their lives envying the labor and talents of others. Solomon saw people who, instead of competing fairly, were gripped by comparison and attacked and slandered their rivals, and he concluded that human life is vanity. Those who succeed can be brought down by the envious and the slanderous even when they have done nothing wrong. Success or failure, then, the affairs of this world are as empty as chasing after wind. A person may win by any means at all, driven by a fierce will to win and no thought for others, but the joy lasts only a moment, and soon they are afraid of losing what they clutch in both hands. This all-too-human heart is what drives them to commit even greater sins to quiet their emptiness, fear, and guilt.
Solomon had pressed on with a single mind to make his nation a great power, but when he looked back, he realized that everything he had built was nothing but human greed. Standing before death, he understood that even the wealth and power so many had envied were vanity, and he wished he had loved God more and lived wisely, giving and sharing as the word teaches. He knew that his officials were using his authority to amass wealth, but because he needed their strength, he turned a blind eye to their sins. Since the people suffered under his officials’ crooked judgments, God, who had entrusted the nation and its people to Solomon, would rebuke him for it. Ashamed of having lived like a fool, Solomon repented, but too late; he had no way left to comfort his people’s suffering.
A leader needs honest and wise people at their side. We can say that a leader is the one who guides everyone else. If those who serve the king hand down crooked judgments, the blame in the end falls on the king; he must therefore keep people of good character close to him. We do not have the wisdom to discern who has good character, but the Holy Spirit, whose character is holy, is with us, and if we live by the word, we can always walk the good path of truth.
Ecclesiastes 3:6
6a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
Solomon is saying that it is better to hold only one handful and keep the heart always at peace and free, even if that seems too little, than to live anxiously with both hands full of what we want. No matter how rich or famous a person is, if their heart is not at peace, there is no contentment in their life.
Wealth and fame in our hands would be a great help in spreading the gospel. But this world is not the end for us, and more than wealth we need true character and holy faith. Solomon regretted the years he had lived without putting God first. I find myself wondering whether Solomon is the only one with such regrets. We too live lives that require constant thought and decision, yet we compare ourselves with others, and sometimes we choose what we know is sin. And though we are sorry for it, we commit the same sin all over again.
Suppose that, after living as we pleased like Solomon, we were to realize that little time remains and no chance is left to turn back—how terrifying that would be! The wise are those who repent the moment they realize this. Now is not the time for you to judge the faith of others. Because the world, just as Scripture says, is sinking ever deeper into spiritual conflict, you must lay aside your own righteousness and hold fast to Christ.
The world prepares many events to shake your faith, but only if your faith does not change can you enter heaven. You may envy those who live in comfort with both hands full of wealth. But if you live freely and at ease, holding in one hand the wealth God has entrusted to you and in the other your faith, Satan will not be able to attack you, because you are not grasping for more.
We may have nothing to boast of before the world, but we have a Protector who blocks Satan’s attacks and a Comforter who wipes away the tears of our suffering. There is no need to worry; we need only live with courage. Giving Satan no foothold for his attacks is itself a sign that we are living by the word. If we live with good character and an honest faith, our lives will be different from Solomon’s, whose regret was as bitter and painful as eating his own flesh.
If we do not want to stand at the end of life regretting years we can never go back to, we must always make the right decisions and hold fast to our faith to the end. It may not feel real now, but the day will surely come when you too stand where Solomon stood, at the last place of life. That is why only by living out your faith today can you meet that day without regret.
Friends, heaven and hell are real. You cannot choose to be born, but where you go after death is something you can decide by faith. Do not forget that you have the Holy Spirit, who leads you to Christ, and Christ, who atoned for our sins. May you be children of God who fight against sin and overcome it.