Well, here in verse 4, we have
these Beatitudes, blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed. The
same word blessed also means happy. And happy or blessed are
they that mourn. That sounds like an absolute
contradiction. That's a paradox. Happy are they
that mourn. Blessed are they that mourn.
For they shall be comforted. And as all of these do, they
should reveal how different the believer in the world are. All
these, blessed are the poor in spirit, they that mourn, the
meek, hungry and thirst after righteousness, shows us how utterly
and absolutely different believers in the world are. Mourning is
ridiculous to the world. It's ridiculous to religion.
When it says here, blessed are they that mourn, happy and mourning
at the same time, yes, The philosophy of this world is forget your
troubles. Have fun. Don't worry, be happy. After pleasure. Always want pleasure. Whatever makes you happy, do
it. Don't be concerned with the consequences. If it makes you
happy and it makes you feel good, go ahead and do it. But now look,
you keep Matthew 5 and look over in Luke 6 with me, just a moment. You know, my father died in 1994. And when I went up to take care
of his funeral, I sat way up in the night trying to figure
out what in the world could I say about him that was good. And
now I'm dead honest with you. I mean, he is my father. I'd
go for years and not see him. And the only thing that I could
actually say about him that was true, absolutely true, without
saying anything negative, was that he absolutely loved to have
a good time. And if you ever got around him
and brought up anything negative, he was gone. He'd say, oh, I
don't want to hear that. His good time Charlie is what
he was. If he couldn't have a good time, he was going to go someplace
where there was somebody having one. If you brought up anything
that he'd ever done wrong, he'd say, that's in the past, just
don't talk about that. You know, and that's, didn't
know anything about mourning. But he's certainly mourning now.
Certainly weeping now. But look here in Luke 6.25. Woe unto you that are rich. No,
woe unto you that are full. For you shall hunger. Woe unto
you that laugh now, and you shall mourn and weep. Take life lightly
now. Want to make life a party and
have a big time? This will be the only time you'll
ever have it, because you'll be brought to mourning and weeping.
But here in Matthew 5 and 4, when it says, Blessed are they
that mourn, for they shall be comforted, this is spiritual
mourning. That's its meaning. It's a spiritual mourning it's
talking about. It's not us who are mourning or weeping naturally
over the death of somebody that we love, or someone that we know,
or some great accident that we've had, or some... that's befallen. It's not natural mourning here
at all he's talking about. It's spiritual mourning. Has
nothing to do with the natural life that's in this world that
he's talking about. The Beatitudes, all of them,
refer to a spiritual condition. spiritual attitude that men and
women have in the kingdom of God. Now this condition of mourning
is shunned by the world. It's shunned by them and by religion.
Look around you. People want to shun heaviness
and I myself have said this and I've told folks this many times.
That enjoy yourself, laugh when you can laugh because there's
going to be plenty enough Things happen in your life that's going
to bring you to tears and bring you to heaviness and bring you
to mourning. So when the Lord blesses you to have some joy
and have some peace and some laughter, take it and enjoy it
because soon your laughter will turn to mourning and your joy
will turn to sorrow. That's just the nature of living.
And so that's what he's talking about. Look over here at Ecclesiastes.
Keep Matthew 5. Look at Ecclesiastes. You know,
this mourning that we're talking about is shunned by the world. Shunned by it. James says, be
afflicted and mourn, you double-minded. You adulterers and abductors,
be afflicted and mourn. And here he says, look what it
says in Ecclesiastes 7, verse 2. It is better to go to the house
of mourning than to go to the house of feasting. For that is
the end of all men. What is? Mourning. One of these
days, everybody's going to mourn. And the living will lay it to
heart. Sorrow is better than laughter. For by the sadness
of the countenance, the heart is made better. Makes you think
and makes you ponder, makes you wonder, makes you worry what
life's about. And the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning.
But the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. In the house
of mirth. And you know it is. We see people
that just all the time act a fool. Just act a fool. They get so
old real quick. I know several people that's
that way. I can think of two people right off the top of my
head that just plays the fool all the time. Just all the time,
and for a preacher to do that, to laugh and make a fool out
of himself and act like a fool and then get up and try to preach,
it's just a waste of time, in my opinion. But there's three
reasons why this mourning is not evident in religion or the
church as it once was. Let me give you three reasons
why this attitude of mourning, this spiritual mourning, doesn't
exist. It's not evident. First of all, it's because of
a false puritanism. A false puritanism. You know,
the Puritans, they always taught, and they were, a lot of them
were miserable, but they taught, and a lot of people believe that
you have to be miserable in order to be religious. And it's a dead
orthodoxy and an assumed piety, acting like you know that you're
pious, and when you're pious, you've got this here sad countenance,
false countenance, and this heaviness, this miserable, and always trying
to do something, you know, but it never seemed to accomplish
it, always mourning over, not being humble, and all this thing.
And people have reacted to that false humility, that false puritanism,
that assumed piety, they've reacted to it, and rightly so. There
is no sense of being miserable, and acting miserable all the
time. Because nobody is, nobody can be. If they are, I feel sorry
for them. And then the second thing is,
is that the reason why mourning is not evident in the so-called
church as we know it, cause believers to attract those who aren't believers,
and to get them into the church, they act jovial. They act happy. People try to assume a joy and
a happiness that doesn't come from within them. They'll say,
well, praise the Lord, hallelujah, come worship the Lord with us.
Oh, and they got the hand clapping and the hand waving and all that
kind of stuff. It's a superficiality. It's a
goodness. It's a joviality that makes no
sense. There's no reason that there's
no sense in it. No sense whatsoever. God, you
see me going someplace and going in somewhere, you know, a restaurant
to eat or go over to Tennessee where I work out or go among
a bunch of people. Well, bless the Lord. How you all? Praise
God. How you all doing? Well, bless
the Lord. Come over there where we have the best timing. It used
to go on and on like that. Ain't no sense to act that way.
It don't make sense. And it's a glibness. It's a joviality.
It makes no sense. They put on a show, appearing
to be something that they're not. But the most serious reason
why there is no mourning is because they do not have a sense of sin,
no understanding of what sin is. They have no understanding
of what sin is. They have a false understanding
of the true nature of biblical joy. You know, they get folks
to come right now, make a decision for Jesus now. Come to the front
now. We want you to accept Jesus now,
without any conviction of sin, without any mention of sin, without
any mention of your attitude toward God and your nature toward
God. They have us, you know, they
want folks to accept Christ right now, no conviction, no mourning,
no burden, no guilt, no shame. And so when that happens, they
all, whenever somebody so-called accepts Jesus, then they have
this concept, this joy. Everybody gets happy and everybody
cries. And it's a superficial concept of joy. It's been produced
by superficial people. And it's a miserable imitation
of the true biblical Christianity. And I tell you, beloved, conviction
must come before conversion. Must come before conversion.
There has to be a true feeling, a true knowing of sin before
joy will ever come. You'll never know true biblical
joy, true biblical peace, until you know what it is to be a sinner
in the sight of God. Ain't that right? Men don't want
to hear about sin. They don't want the truth about
sin. They want joy. They want happiness. They want
freedom from their burdens. They don't want to hear about
sin. They don't want to hear about its effects. And the effects
of sin is horrible. Horrible. And there's not a home
here today, represented here now, that has not felt the horrible
effects of sin in their life. I'll tell you, I just met a fellow
yesterday, Friday I mean, and he used to come in all the time
and just talk and visit, but I hadn't seen him in a couple
of weeks. He'd come in, he had a stroke, and he was trying to talk to
me and he could not. He'd start saying something and he'd leave.
Start saying something and he'd leave. Hobbling on one side. Oh, things change just like that. One moment you're full of joy
and everything's alright, and the next minute, bang! And oh,
I tell you, beloved, a man that's lost rejoices to be found. And he's got to be lost before
he knows what it is to be found. Now it says, happy are those
that mourn. Blessed are those that mourn.
What does this mean? Well, believers are to be like
the Lord Jesus Christ. So let's start with Him. Let's
just start with Him. There's no record in the scriptures
whatsoever that our Lord Jesus ever laughed. One time He spoke
of Him rejoicing, for having joy. No record that He laughed. There's record that He was angry.
He was angry with Him for the hardness of heart. He got angry
and drove His money changers and merchandisers of men sold
out of the temple. We read about Him being hungry.
We read about Him thirsting. We read about him being a man
of sorrows. We hear about him being a man acquainted with grief.
And look over here in John 8, 57. He probably looked a lot
older than he was. He probably looked a heaps odd
older than he really was. And you find this, that he wept
twice. You find him weeping twice in
the Scripture. He wept at Lazarus' tomb, and then he stood and wept
over Jerusalem. And he said, Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
how I have gathered you. But you would not. Look here
in John 8, 57. Then said the Jews unto him,
Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast seen Abraham. He was just barely thirty-three
years old at the time. And they said to him, You're
not yet fifty. So evidently he looks much older than he actually
was. And that's the way they said, You're not even yet fifty.
And our Lord Jesus Christ died when He was just 33, a little
over 33 years old. Now you compare our Lord Jesus
Christ, you compare His nature, His way He lived in this world,
and His conduct in this world, and His nature in this world,
and compare it with the world. Compare it with the brightness
and the joviality that people think is the right portrayal
of the believer. And oh my! And then the second thing, how
about Paul? Let's go to Paul. You know, in Romans 7, look at
that with me. In Romans 7. You know, here's a man who's
grief-stricken about himself. He's grief-stricken about himself,
and he cries, Oh, wretched man that I am. That don't sound like
a fellow that says, Let's give Jesus a big hand clap. That don't sound like a fellow
who come up and accepted Jesus and now he feels real good about
himself and he's fixed up for heaven, got his insurance policy
all paid up with his tears. No, no. He cries out there in
verse 24. Oh, listen to him cry out in
grief. Oh, wretched man that I am! Who
shall deliver me from this body of death? That's a crying out. He cries out in agony. He's drinking
about himself, his condition. You see, believer knows the experience
of feeling absolutely hopeless within himself. And that's where
Paul was. He felt hopeless within himself.
Look what he said in verse 18. For I know that in me, in me,
in me as Paul, in me as an apostle, in me as a believer, I know that
in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. Now the will is
present with me. Oh, to will. I've got the will
to be good. I've got the will to do good.
I've got the will to live to the glory of God. I've got the
will to live sinless. But how to perform that which
is good? I can't find it. Now watch this. For the good that I would, I
do not. But the evil which I would not,
that I do. Now, if I do that that I would
not, it is no more I that do it, but what is it? Sin. Sin that dwelleth in me. I find
in it all that when I would do good, evil is right there with
it, everything that goes on, and it's all in me. Huh? Now, we all know that experience
of being hopeless, all that experience of being helpless in ourselves.
What can we do? What can we do? What in the world?
How are we going to change ourselves? And that's why it talks about
here agony, grief stricken. This is what this morning means
about it. Now look down at verse 8 of chapter
1. There's therefore, Romans 8,
1. There's therefore, now, now no
condemnation of them which are in Christ Jesus. Huh? What's he talking about? He says
in verse 2, For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus
has made me free from the law of sin and death. There he was
groaning and moaning and crying out to be delivered from it.
Here he is rejoicing in what Christ did. It wasn't a new Paul. It wasn't a different Paul. But
he just knew where his hope was. It was outside of himself. He
still had this groaning. He still had this burden. He
still had this mourning. He just knew that where his hope
was, was in Christ and it was outside of himself. And look
what he says down in verse 23. He still talked about groaning
waiting for the redemption of the body. Romans 8.23. Talking
about the whole creation groaning together. Not only they, but
we ourselves also. Which have the firstfruits of
the Spirit. Even we ourselves groan within ourselves. What
are you groaning for? Waiting for the adoption. Waiting
for the redemption. For Christ to come and take our
body to glory and change it. That's what he's talking about.
Look at 2 Corinthians 5.1. Oh, we want to know what spiritual
morning is. Just look at these believers. Look at our Lord Jesus
Christ. Look at the Apostle Paul here.
He told Timothy and he told Titus, be sober, be brave, be diligent. Look what he says here in 2 Corinthians
5.1. For we know That if our earthly
house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building
of God, a house, a house not made with ash, eternal in the
heavens. Watch it now. For in this we groan. That's
what that old man with that stroke I met the other day said. He
said, I want to be done. I said, I want to go home. For
in this we groan, earnestly designed to be clothed upon with our house
which is from heaven. Be done with this body, is what
he said. Be done with it. Oh my. Well, that's what, you know,
what does it mean? Look at the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what it means. Now why
does a believer mourn? Why does a believer mourn? Well,
it necessarily follows being poor in spirit. Necessarily,
if you're poor in spirit, you automatically, necessarily start
mourning. But as I see God, as I see Christ,
and how I should be, how I should be, in light of God, in light
of Christ, in light of their holiness, in light of their mercy,
in light of their grace, how I should be. I see my utter helplessness
and hopelessness, and that makes me mourn, because I cannot do
anything about it. A man who sees and knows himself
in light of God, in light of Christ, must, and when he sees
himself and knows himself, must mourn for his sin. And I'm telling you, when you
mourn for your sin, you're mourning for a nature that's within you.
That's what Paul was going about over a nature that's not something
that he did, what he was. Paul didn't say, I'm mourning
over my adultery, I'm mourning over my lying, I'm mourning over
my stealing, I'm mourning over my cussing, I'm mourning over
my drunkenness. He said, I'm mourning over me,
the sin dwelling in me. Oh, however doesn't, when a man
sees his everyday life, he mourns because he is the way he is and
cannot, wants to be so much better to the glory of God. That woman
sat at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ, and she just began to
weep, and it fell all over his feet, and as the tears just soaked
his feet, she took her hairs and dried them, and our Lord
Jesus Christ, said, her sins, she is now mourning over her
sins, and she is mourning over them before Christ, and she said,
her sins, which are many, they are forgiven. And that prodigal,
when he came to himself, came to himself, he said, you know
what, they've got to prep my daddy's house. And he run home,
and his father, He said, This my son, which was dead, is now
alive. This my son, which was lost,
is now found. And that boy rejoiced. And oh
my, when Peter preached on the day of Pentecost, those men smoked
their breasts and said, Sirs, men and brethren, what must we
do? What must we do? They smoked their breasts and
said, Oh, what are we going to do? We've crucified Christ! We've
murdered the Son of God! He's risen now, says, and God,
we're going to have to face Him. What are we going to do? Repent
and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, a man who sees and
knows himself must mourn for his sin. And a believer mourns
because of the sins of others. You know, they call Jeremiah
the weeping prophet. Why do they call him the weeping
prophet? He wept over the condition of his nation, the condition
of his king. The condition of the elders.
The condition of religion. The priesthood and everything
about it. Keep Matthew 5 and look in Ezekiel 9 just a moment. And of all the years that I've
been interested in, all my life I've been interested in America.
And I love America. Everybody here loves America.
We honor our country. I believe everybody here is patriotic. I believe they'd go put on a
uniform, do whatever's necessary if it was required. And there's
never been a time in my life that I'm more burdened than I
am right now with this nation and what it faces, and what my
grandchildren and great-grandchildren are facing. We have, with this
country, is in the most abominable condition that you can imagine. I heard the other day, and this
is true, I heard the nurse herself tell it. There's a hospital. They take babies after they've
been born. And they try to abort them before
they come out. As long as they don't break the
birth canal, they can kill them. But if they're born, they'll
induce labor in a premature baby, and they'll take it in a little
room, A room where they keep dirty
rags and all that kind of stuff. And they take it in there and
let it lay until it dies. And this woman talked about this
and how many she found in there. And they found this one little
baby in there, a little downs baby. A little boy. And she found
the nurse carrying that baby into that room. And she said,
Oh, I couldn't bear it. She took that baby. She went
in there and sat down with that baby and sat within her arms
for 45 minutes before that baby died. She went to in front of a committee
of our senators and told all those stories. And several others
told stories. And they even showed them pictures
of those dead babies. And they never batted an eye.
Now you think we ain't a-going, Jesse, whenever you kill babies
and nobody has any conscience about it? Hell ain't half full, I tell
you. That just burdens me to no end. When that woman told
that... Now this is a woman, and she exposed it. She exposed
the hospital and told how many times they'd done that and how
many babies was done that way at that one hospital. And she
got fired. They fired her. They wouldn't let them live.
They don't just go in, they're going to die anyway, they say,
so just let them die. Oh, I tell you, and drugs, the
drugs in this country, the drugs in this county, the drugs in
this county. Gary just went to a funeral where
somebody died with a drug overdose. Twenty years old. Beautiful girl. And drugs not only affect that
person, but everybody in their home and their family. It's a grievous thing. And something
can be done about it, but there's too much money involved, there's
too much power involved, and that's why it won't ever stop
as long as somebody's got enough money to pay somebody else off.
That's the reason this thing. And that's why we mourn over
the sins. That's why Jeremiah was a weeping prophet. And if
God took back the curtain, if God alone just took back the
curtain, just for just two or three minutes and let us see
the darkness and the blackness and the horridness of what's
going on in our own country, we would absolutely turn white-headed
in age. Just oh, it would be unbelievable.
It would be frightening. But look here in Ezekiel chapter
9, verse 4. And the Lord said unto him, Go
through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem,
and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that
cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. God said there's people this
morning that are sighing over the condition. of Israel over
the condition of our nation. You go through there, and you
set a mark on their forehead. And the rest of them, and you
respond to the rest of them, he said, you go slay. Oh, beloved,
we mourn over the state of things in the world, mourn over the
state of things in our own community, mourn over the state of things
in the church. We see, beloved, God's people
see because of sin, this world is in a horrible, horrible, horrible
state. That's why our Lord mourned.
That's why He mourned. That's why He was a man of sorrows.
That's why He wept. Because of sin and its effects. Sin's hard. It's ugly. It's foul. There's nothing good about it.
And He knew what sin meant to God Almighty. And oh, that's what spiritual
mourning is. It's taught in the Scripture. And you notice it
says, Blessed are they that mourn. It didn't say they that have
mourned. This mourn, what you mourn, it's a continuous thing,
it's always there. It's the opposite of the world.
They laugh now, they eat now, they drink now, they're married
now, they let's party now. But oh my, it'll stop. But then it says here in verse
4 of Matthew 5, Blessed are they that mourn, watch this, for they
shall be comforted. Oh, we may mourn now. We may
grieve now over ourselves, and over the church, and over the
world, and over our children, and over the condition of our
nation, and over the condition of our community, and over our
own. We may mourn and grieve over it. But beloved, one of
these days, and even now, we've comforted. Those who mourn should
be happy, comforted. What a paradox. And it's a promise. Not only have they, we've already
been comforted. God has already comforted us.
We've been comforted by coming to know Christ. Right now, we
know Christ now. What a comfort to know that.
We mourn over sin, and that shows us that we've been convicted
over sin. We know what it is. We've been converted. A man who
knows what sin is, he comes to Christ and he rejoices in knowing
God. And he's comforted that his sins
have been put away. A man who's lost rejoices that
he's found. Oh, we have been comforted when
we come to Christ. And the believer continues to
be comforted. Oh, sin cast him down. Oh, how
it cast us down sometimes. I get so discouraged and disgusted
with myself over my lack of spirituality. I certainly hope you never feel
like I do about it. I feel like I've got the coldest,
hardest heart. Ain't got an ounce of spirituality
about me. I certainly hope you'd never feel that way. But all
sin casts us down, but sin also, and this drives us to the Lord
Jesus Christ. And when it drives us to Christ,
we find peace there, we find joy there, we find happiness
there. And our life is one of mourning, And then joy. Sorrow, then happiness. Tears,
and then laughter. They lead one to another. Huh? Don't they? Look in 2 Corinthians
6. Let me show you something. Just
a moment. I just thought of this when I
was going through this message, working this message up. Here
in verse 10. Here's the other man that we
like what we're talking about. Full, but always empty and full. Look what he says. In 2 Corinthians
6 and verse 10. 2 Corinthians 6 and chapter 10. He said, as sorrowful, yet always
rejoicing. As poor, yet you're making other
people rich. How do you poor, how can somebody
poor make somebody else rich? Well, he read the light. Loving
one another. Being tender-hearted one toward
another. Praying for one another. And as having nothing, I have
absolutely nothing, and yet I possess all things. You know, only believers understand
that. We're continuing to be comforted. And then there's the comfort
that we have of the blessed hope. You know, the scripture says
that we look for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of
our Savior, Jesus Christ. Oh, that's a blessed hope. And
on in Romans 8.18, it says, I reckon that the sufferings of this present
time are not worthy to be compared to the glory which shall be revealed
in us. There's a glory coming, beloved,
when Christ shall come in glory, then shall we also appear with
Him in glory. There's a world coming where
there's no sin, where there's no more enemies, where there's
nothing but a new heaven and a new earth and nothing there
but righteousness. Look with me in Luke 16.25. Luke
16.25. We're being comforted. And I have great joy, great comfort
when I start thinking about going to be with Christ, going to be
with the Lord. And it won't be long. It surely
won't. And what a comfort it is to know
that. Look what it says here. This is Abraham talking to Lazarus,
or Dias, who is in hell. He says, verse 25, that Abraham
said, Son, remember that you in your lifetime, you received
your good things. And like Lazarus' evil things,
But now, he has comforted him, and you're tormenting him. Lazarus didn't have anything.
In this world, the rich man had everything. In hell, the rich
man ain't got nothing. Lazarus now, he's got all the
comfort. Let me ask you this serious question. What hope does a man have who
is not a believer? We have a blessed hope, and this
hope comforts us right now. Oh, what joy and what comfort
it gives to us. Christ comforts us now, even
over our sin and our weakness and our inability, because we
look outside ourselves. Thank God we can look outside
ourselves. Thank God we have somebody to
go to. Thank God our sins are being put away. Thank God Christ
makes intercession for us every day, every moment of every day.
Well, what hope does a man have who is not a believer? What can
he trust in? What can he trust in? What's
there for him to truly look to? To the world? What's the world
going to give him? Going to find peace in the world?
Never has been peace in the world. Wars and rumors of wars all the
time. Well, man's going to get better.
They're going to improve. No, no, they're not getting any
better. No. Well, education? No. What hope is there in the
world for anybody? Everything in the world has failed. Everything has failed. Now, you
think about that. Everything has failed. You tell
me something in the world hasn't failed. The economy fails. And
when it fails, everybody suffers. Politicians fail. Nations fall. Health fails. Homes fail. Bankruptcy fails. Health fails.
Everything that's in this world fails sooner or later. We'll get up one of these days
and we'll be like Samson. We'll shake ourselves and the
strength is gone. So what in the world, what's
hope in wherever things fail? There's no hope in the world.
But believers, mourners, they have a good hope. A sure hope. A steadfast hope. And it's already
behind the veil. And he went and said, where's
some coming after me? Oh, we grown here, yes, at times. Yet we're happy for the joy that's
set before us. Tears, yes, and mourning, yes,
but there won't be any there. Oh, when we see Christ and we
rejoice with Christ and come face to face with our Savior,
nothing there but eternal joy, nothing there but eternal comfort,
nothing there but eternal resting and rejoicing in the presence
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Right here and right now, we
know the joy of sin's forgiving. comfort. We know the joy of knowing
God and the joy of knowing that God knows us. No wonder he says,
blessed are they that mourn, they'll be comforted. Our precious, precious Savior,
our gracious, eternal God, Thank you for allowing us this time
to meet with the children of God. Thank you for your word.
Thank you for the blessed hope we have in Christ. And, Lord,
we do. Everyone knows what it is to
have heaviness, knows what it is to mourn. But, O Lord Jesus,
they also know what it is to be comforted. And we thank you
for the comfort. We're with you, Comforters. We
bless you for that. Meet the needs of this congregation
of believers. Continue to strengthen the frail
and the sick. Meet the needs of your dear people.
We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.