A Time to Mourn

I'm going to start off in a section of Scripture that's quite interesting and quite encouraging. Let's go back to Ecclesiastes. Solomon was the outside of Jesus Christ, the wisest man who lived. And as he, near the end of his life, he had many reflections on what he had and done, what were the important things of life. And just throughout the life of Jesus in general, in Ecclesiastes 3, he has a very poetic first part of the chapter here. In fact, it was put to music several years ago, and in the sixties was a big hit. Ecclesiastes 3, verse 1, To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven, a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck what is planted, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to gain and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and And a time to sew, a time to keep silence, and a time to speak. A time to love, and a time to hate, a time of war, and a time of peace. He covers pretty much everything in those verses, doesn't he? The good times and the bad times of life. And life is full of good times, but life is full of bad times as well, or what we might term bad times.

And those bad times, if we look at things, can be as valuable and maybe more valuable to us than the good times in life. They're reminded that back in Deuteronomy 8, when God was about to bring Israel into the promised land, he told them, when you go over to the land and you are filled with plenty, don't forget me, he said. Don't forget God. Don't forget my statutes. And Israel, of course, did. And sometimes in the good times, we contend to slack off a little bit and think everything is going okay. And sometimes we need the bad times to help us recoup and to think about where our lives are and where we're going with them. You know, Christ talked about good times and bad times as well. Back in the Sermon on the Mount, the very first sermon we have of his recorded, he talked about those at the very beginning of the sermon. Let's go back to Matthew 5. All those times that Solomon wrote about, every single one of us have experienced and if we haven't already, we'll experience them in our life.

And in Matthew 5, as Christ calls away his disciples and talks to them, he talks to them about some of the things that may seem as a paradox to us because it's not the way of the world as we might think it should be.

Chapter 5, let's begin with verse 1, seeing the multitudes. Christ went up on a mountain, and when he was seated, his disciples came to him. Then he opened his mouth and he taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will attain mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And finally, blessed are you, when they revile and persecute you and say, All kinds of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

And he says, Rejoice and be exceedingly glad.

Now, when we read those Beatitudes, we see things that are not so good times of life, right? Poor in spirit. Poor in spirit. You know, and Christ kind of turns the tables on things here.

The people of that time would have thought, Poor in spirit, and they're going to inherit the kingdom?

No, no, no. It's the rich. It's the elite. It's the proud. It's the ones who command society. Won't they inherit the kingdom? That's who usually inherits the kingdom. Christ said it won't be them.

It'll be the poor in spirit that inherit the kingdom.

No one wants to mourn. But he says, Blessed are you when you mourn.

Mourn is one of those feelings that we would try to shy away from in life. But he says, No.

Bless are you when you mourn, for you'll be comforted.

Going on, he says, you know, down there, Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake. No one wants to be persecuted. But he says, if you're persecuted, that's a good thing. You'll be called sons of God. And if they revile you and persecute you, then be exceedingly glad. So some would look at that and say, What is Christ talking about? Those aren't the times of life we should be looking for. How can the poor in spirit be blessed? How can those who mourn be blessed? How can it be a blessing to be persecuted? And yet he says, if you're going to be in the kingdom, these are the things that he starts off his first sermon that we have recorded by saying those things. Those are the attitudes that you need to develop in your life. You need to look at things differently because God's kingdom is far, far different than the kingdoms of this world. To be in that are far different qualifications than what to be king or a priest in the kingdom of this world would be. And you had better, I'll use the word better. He would admonish us all to learn those things. And when we look at those things in our lives to see that there's value in some of the bad times in life, they're not to be always avoided. They're not to be shunned. They're not to be looked down upon. But they're something that we can learn from those things. You know, back at the time, throughout these beatitudes, nine times it uses the word blessed. The word blessed comes from the Greek word, mekaryos. I'm going to talk to that in a little bit. The work-week word mekaryos means enlarged. It means God builds you up. He enlarges you. And most of the times in the Bible it's translated either blessed or happy.

The same word as in John 1317. We read it at Passover when Jesus Christ, after he set the example of foot washing, he said, there it says, happy are you do them. It's the same word mekaryos, blessed are you, if you do them. And when the Greeks heard the word mekaryos, what it meant, and when they would hear that, they would say they would have thought this is something that the elite are able to achieve in life.

They're the mekaryos ones. They have no worries left. They've reached a level that they're exempt from all cares, all concerns. They're the ones who we should aspire to be, but only a few are able to become ever in that elite status. They would even look at the dead as mekaryos because they've already gone through life and wherever they believed in the afterlife, they were to state that they would all envy.

In fact, you can look at some of these things and say, you know, it's a state to be envied, Jesus Christ said. It's a state to be envied, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. It is envied to mourn because they will be comforted. It is envied to be poor in spirit because they will inherit the kingdom of God. In fact, when you read the Amplified Bible, this is how they describe or how they translate Matthew 5 verse 3.

And blessed, they say. But then in parentheses, it says, happy to be envied and spiritually prosperous with life joy and satisfaction and God's favor and salvation, regardless of their outward conditions. See how much they do because, like the word blessed, sometimes it's overused in our society and it just doesn't capture everything that Macarios means and that Christ was trying to convey to us in those things.

So they would expand that so that people realize it's more than just blessed, as in have a blessed day, they hear some people say. It's more than just blessed. It is the station and it is the situation in life that we should all envy, that we should all say we want to be in that state, we want to be what Christ is describing here. And when the disciples heard it that day, when people who know the Greek language read it, that's what they think of.

That's something we should attain for. That's something to strive for. That's the state that all of us should want to be for. And Christ is saying, if we do these things, if we understand these things, then that is certainly going to be something that we would attain to. And He's saying, if you want to be in that state, here are some of the traits that we need to develop. Here are some of the things that need to be built into our lives. This is how some of the... this is somehow of the teachings or the change in mind that has to happen, so that we don't look at the things the same way we would naturally look at them as human beings and say, I want to avoid mourning at all costs.

I want to avoid being poor at all costs. I want to avoid hunger and rights, hunger and thirst at all costs, even after righteousness. Because if we experience some of these things, as we'll see, Christ said, you learn something so valuable you can never learn any other way. Well, over the next few months, certainly not week after week after week, we're going to go through some of these these fee attitudes.

Today, today I want to go through the second one that's listed there. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Now, before the feast, we had, in both congregations, we had several family members who lost loved ones during that time. After services today, we'll remember Juanita Ritchie, who we all mourned, even though, even though we were all kind of scattering at the time that her funeral was.

And we know that in the congregations, there has been some mourning that we've all experienced over the last several weeks.

Christ said, blessed are they who mourn, blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. You know, mourning is not a happy experience. We've all lost loved ones. We've all gone through that process. It's difficult. We wake up in the morning and we remember the person's life just isn't the same. But what Christ is saying and what we all learn or should learn, when we're, if we never mourned, if we never mourn, if we never experienced that, we would never understand or experience what God's comfort is. The only way to understand God's comfort is to mourn. And the most common thing that we think of when we mourn is a death of a loved one. But there's other types of mourning as well that we'll talk about. But I want you to think about that. Christ said, if we never mourn, we would never understand God's comfort. And isn't that true? Because those of us in the church, we understand the comfort of the truth of God. Those in the world that don't have that truth, they don't understand what it's like. All they see is death as an end with no hope. But when we have God and we have the truth, we find that there is something to be learned, something to be valued when we go through these so-called bad or trying times in life, something that we learn that draws us closer to Him and that makes us much more understand Him, much more understand what He means and how valuable it is to not just wish these things away, but to understand them, to embrace them, and ask God to help us learn from them everything that He wants us to learn.

Now, we're going to talk about mourning, and Christ said, blessed are those who mourn. There's always a danger that some will look at it and say, oh, I need to mourn all the time. You know, we'll see that. People will look at me and say, oh, look, I'm mourning. God doesn't want to do that. Right here in Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6, He talks about those who pray and pray in a false manner just to be seen by others. So let's just review that so that what He's talking about mourning is genuine mourning, the things that we go through, and not just the death of loved ones, as we will see in a minute. Matthew 6, verse 1, take heed, He said, that you don't do your charitable deeds before men to be seen by them. It's good to do charitable deeds. What is your motive behind it, is what He's saying. Otherwise, you have no reward from your Father in Heaven. Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, don't sound the trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. Just do it. Do it from the heart, He says, not to be seen by others, not to think, oh, look, look at what I'm going through. He says the same thing about prayer going on in this chapter. He says the same thing about fasting. Don't do it to be seen, because if that's what you're doing it for, then you've got your reward and you won't ever experience what God wants you to really derive out of doing charitable deeds, out of praying, out of fasting, out of going through some of the things that we go through in life that He talks about in the Beatitudes. We talked about some types of mourning. Let's talk first about the one that's all obvious that comes to our mind when we talk about mourning. It's when a loved one dies, and we've all experienced that. Well, everyone who's an adult has probably experienced that in their life, and we know the grief that occurs with that, and we see that in the Bible. I mean, Jacob, when Jacob died, Joseph died. He mourned. He mourned. When Jacob died, Joseph mourned. When Aaron Moses died, Israel mourned. People mourn, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's good to do that. You see in the Bible, there's periods of 30 days and 50 days of mourning. There's nothing wrong with mourning, as it's a natural human reaction and something we shouldn't try to talk anyone out of. It's not something we should try to talk ourselves out of. Some people mourn for 30 days, some 60s, some for a year, some for two years or more. It's okay to mourn. It's okay to grieve. We do mourn the loss of a loved one. But from that mourning, we learn something. We should learn something. Let's go back to 1 Corinthians 15. 1 Corinthians 15.

Somewhere, during the time that we mourn, and as we talk to God and as we pray to Him, and as we ask Him to help us through that time and to teach us what He wants us to learn, we learn that there is hope. There is hope. 1 Corinthians 15. Verse 51. Paul writes, I told you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. It is, God says in Hebrews 9.27, it's appointed for all men once to die. It hurts when they die. We miss them when they die. We grieve when they die.

But there's hope. Not hoping what the world thinks. Not hoping what the world believes. But there is hope when we know God. And we find, when we're mourning, that we learn to look to God because that's where the comfort comes. It doesn't come from our own minds. It doesn't come from other things, but it comes from God. Verse 55, death, where is your sting? Death, where is your victory? Verse 57, thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Through mourning, we understand people will live again. They will be resurrected. It is all about just this life and only this physical life. If it was only about this physical life, Paul says earlier in the chapter, we are, of all men, most pitiable. How sorry is that if the only thing that God ever allowed us to live for was what we do in this 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100 years that He gives us to live? But there is hope. There's comfort in the fact that those loved ones, they will live again, whether in the first resurrection or the second resurrection. And it's not just. Paul's writing here to people who are the called of God, who will be in the first resurrection, who will, who have the Holy Spirit and who will, we all hope and pray, keep living by the Holy Spirit and led by the Holy Spirit until the time they die or the time of Christ's return. But there is hope for all mankind. All mankind will rise again. All mankind will have the opportunity to know God.

There's hope. There's comfort. So when Paul says a few books forward in 1 Thessalonians, he never says we shouldn't, we shouldn't mourn, but our mourning. And through our mourning, we learn after the process or through the process just how comforting God is and how comforting His truth is. 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 13, I don't want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others. Notice that.

Go ahead and sorrow. That's the right thing to do. But lest you sorrow as others who have no hope, who don't have the comfort that we would have or that we should have, because we know what God's plan is, because we know who He is, we know what He wants for all of mankind, that you should suffer as others who have no hope. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep.

And then He goes through the return of Jesus Christ for those who are the called in God now.

But there is the second resurrection, too. Time of hope for all of mankind. So somewhere through the clouds of mourning and missing people, we are thankful and we're comforted by the fact they're going to live again. They're going to live again. Their time isn't over. And thanks be to God that we have that comfort, because if we weren't here, if we didn't know God's truth, we wouldn't have that comfort. All of you have been to funerals. And I remember well some of the funerals that I went to, you know, when I was much younger with uncles and whatever, and seeing the abject grief of aunts and children who lost their parents, and talking to them and them realizing we don't know where they are. They may be in heaven. They may be in purgatory. And I thought, how sad is that that you just don't know? And we do know. We know exactly what occurs after death. So we mourn, but at least we're comforted by that fact. Back in 2 Thessalonians, one book forward.

2 Thessalonians 2, verse 16.

Paul writes this, Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and our God and Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope by grace. See that? God who has loved us, God who gives us consolation, God who has given us good hope, may He comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work. Our comfort comes through Him. He's the one that provided the hope of mankind. He came that sins could be forgiven. He was resurrected that we had the hope of eternal life, and that resurrections do occur. Our hope comes through Him.

That's where comfort comes from. True comfort. So when Christ said, blessed are those who mourn, who are sorry, who are grieving in one case for loved ones.

For comfort comes from God and from the truth. Back in Luke 2 and verse 25.

Now, Jesus Christ was born. You remember the man Simeon? And he had something interesting to say about Jesus Christ, what He was going to be. Verse 25 says, There was a whole... behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. And this man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel. See that?

Jesus Christ, this child, this Messiah that's going to be born, He's going to be the consolation of Israel. We'll look to Him for comfort. He'll give us peace. He'll give us security. We'll be able to be settled and we'll be able to be established in Him. And He knew that would happen.

You know, as we look through the Old Testament, and I'll get to maybe one or two of these later, we even look at Psalm 23. When we look at death or when we're facing death or trying times in our life, you know, Psalm 23 verse 4 says, Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. And what does it say after that? For your rod and staff, they comfort me.

They comfort me. So no matter what we're going through, the times of life, as we lose loved ones, as we may be facing some problems ourselves, it's God's truth that comforts. It's God who comforts. It's Jesus Christ. We can find Him there, and we can find comfort for Him. And hopefully, as you and I grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, as we have His Holy Spirit living in us and developing in us, we can comfort each other as well. You know, God calls us to encourage each other, to exhort each other. There's times where we comfort each other, too, if we have His Holy Spirit. Let's know the 2nd Corinthians. 2nd Corinthians 1. 2nd Corinthians 1 and verse 3.

Here's the word, Macarios, verse 3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. So we have a responsibility. And when we see someone that's suffering, we can comfort them with words, too. We can remind them of their calling. We can remind them of the truth. We can be a comfort, and we can ask God, help us to be a comfort to them. Give us the words to say that will be of some meaning to them, of some comfort to them. Because God expects that of us as well. And as we grow with each other, and as we grow in the grace, knowledge, the Spirit, that Holy Spirit that Jesus Christ calls a what? A comforter? One of the things He says, it's a comforter of us. When we mourn, when we have trials, when we have mourners in the case of a loved one, we learn what it is to be comforted. And those of us and those of you who have experienced that, when you think about it, you realize the comfort that God gave.

Well, that's one type of mourning, but the Bible talks about other types of mourning as well. Back in 1 Samuel 15. It's a very interesting example of mourning by the prophet Samuel.

1 Samuel 15, verse 35. You'll remember that Samuel ordained at God's direction Saul to be king over Israel. Saul was a disappointment. He didn't follow God's commands explicitly. He reasoned, used his own reasoning to displease God in a number of occasions, took matters into his own hands, didn't wait for God, the whole number of things that we've talked about before. God finally removed Saul from being king because He just displeased him in so many ways. In 1 Samuel 15, and verse 35, says this, Samuel went no more to see Saul until the day of his death. God had removed Saul from being king. Samuel didn't see him anymore. Samuel could have, inhumanly, could have been very irritated and upset with Saul. Nevertheless, it says, Samuel mourned for Saul, and the eternal regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel.

Look at Samuel, what he did. He mourned for Saul. He was sorry that Saul departed from the way.

He had heartache over that. Here was a man who was given everything, much like we have been given everything. And he watched Saul over times, and Saul didn't pay any attention to the warnings that God gave him. Saul just kept marching to the way he wanted things done. And he regretted, and he mourned for Saul, that God had had to take his blessings away from Saul. And maybe we see that as people who are with us, and then they just decide, you know, their way is better, or they have an issue here or an issue there, and they just decide, I'm taking matters into my own hands, I'm taking all my toys, and I'm going somewhere else or going nowhere else.

Do we mourn for those people? Do we understand what they're giving up?

Samuel understood it. He wasn't like, okay, Saul was just a lost cause. He brought it all on himself. He mourned. He mourned. He had a deep love for the people. We should all have that love for one another, that we don't want to see anyone ever leave the truth. When we see people struggling, that we would go and we would help them to understand, or we would try to encourage them, that don't leave what God has given you. There is no, this is a tremendous opportunity. There is nothing like it else in life, period. Nothing can be prepared to it. And Saul, or Samuel, knew what Saul gave up. Do we mourn when someone leaves, when they decide, nah, it's just not worth it. I just assume follow my own way than God's way.

Well, that's a type of mourning, a mourning that's in the Bible. Paul experienced the same thing over the sins of Israel. You know, speaking of Samuel, you know, we can do that when our children leave, right? Some of us here have had children who decided, I don't want to live that way. And we mourn for them, because it is a kind of death. It is something that they're giving up, something that they're leaving behind, that they shouldn't. They may not understand the value of it, but there's a period of mourning that we go through. We understand that God is merciful, though, and that they're in God's hands, whatever his determination is. So, let's go back to 2 Corinthians.

2 Corinthians 12. 2 Corinthians 12.

Can't seem to get to 12. There it is. 12, verse 19. Let's begin in verse 19.

Paul, speaking to the Corinthians, he says, again, do you think that we excuse ourselves to you? We speak before God in Christ, but we do all things, beloved, for your edification. He's saying what our mission here is, when we come to you, we're doing it for you to be built up. We're doing it for your good. We're not looking, as he told the Corinthians many times, I'm not coming to see what you can do for me. I'm doing what I can do for you. I want you to be in the kingdom. I want you to follow God's way. This is what Paul wanted. He was willing to sacrifice anything and did sacrifice everything to take the gospel to the people and to encourage them and to help them along. And he's saying everything we do, we do it for your edification. For I fear, lest when I come I will not find you such as I wish. I have high expectations of you, he's saying, but I kind of fear that maybe you're not living the way with all of your heart. You're not doing the things that you've been taught to do.

For I fear, lest when I come, I will not find you such as I wish, and that I shall be found by you, such as you don't wish that I may be a disappointment to you, lest there be contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, backbiting, whispering, conceits, and tumors, all these things that happen when human nature gets in the way and people aren't doing or aren't being led by God the way they fully should be. He goes, lest when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and I shall mourn for many who have sinned before and have not repented of the uncleanness, fornication, and lewdness which they have practiced. He was mourning because of the sins of the church. When he went back, that he would find out these people haven't, haven't repented. They haven't learned from their mistakes. They haven't mourned in the way they should, and that he would find them, and he was mourning over the Corinthian church. What am I going to find when you have done this and you haven't ever understood and you haven't repented? You haven't thrown the way you should. You haven't become more like Jesus Christ. You haven't grasped the concept that purity is the thing we seek and that whatever stands in that way as God leads us to understand, we are willing to sacrifice and get out of our lives. Paul was mourning over that.

I don't want you. He wanted the temple of God to be built. He wanted it to be a pure temple that was built. And in his mind, it's like, I'm afraid I'm going to be mourning over those things that you haven't done and what has happened to you as a result and how far you are away from God.

You know, other men of God have prayed the same thing. Daniel, when you read Daniel 9, when he was going before God and asking what some of the meaning of some of these signs and prophecies were that he had, what he did was lay his soul out before God. Israel has sinned. We have sinned before you. Ezra did the same thing. We have sinned before you. We have not done what you did, God, and what you wanted us to do. Forgive us. And he acknowledged we have to learn from our mistakes. We have to learn from those sins. We can't keep in the same concept or in the same path if God's going to grow us and going to bring us to where he wants us to be. He expects us to be growing. He expects us to be overcoming. He expects us to becoming more and more like him, being able to identify his will and where his open doors are and where his closed doors are as well, and following him and walking in that path and doing the things that he would have done.

So Paul mourned. Daniel mourned. Ezra mourned. When we see sins in the church, we should mourn, because that isn't what God called us for. He didn't call us to be status quo. He didn't call us to be just like we were last year. He didn't call us to tolerate ongoing sin in our midst, just as he cautions Corinthians and 1 Corinthians 5. You've allowed this to keep going on in you.

And what did he do? He put that person out. And that person mourned, and they learned quite a bit from it when they lost something. Let's go back to Nehemiah. Nehemiah. We'll see. We'll see in Nehemiah another thing that we can mourn. In Nehemiah 1, you'll remember under Ezra, some of the temple was built, but the walls of Jerusalem, after Judah went into captivity and seventy years later when God allowed them to go back to Jerusalem, the walls weren't built. The work of God wasn't finished. In other words, let's pick it up in Nehemiah 1 in verse 1.

Words of Nehemiah the son of HaKaliah, It came to pass in the month of Keslev in the twentieth year, Nehemiah writing, As I was in Shushan, the citadel, that Han and I, one of my brethren, came with men from Judah, and I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped, who had survived the captivity and concerning Jerusalem, what's going on over there? What is that work that God has commissioned what's happening over there? And they said to me, the survivors who were left from the captivity in the province are there in great distress and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are burned with fire. The work isn't progressing. It's not happening, is what Nehemiah said. So it was, it says, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned for many days. See where his heart was? His heart was in the work that God had commissioned them to do. And when he found out it was broken, and the people weren't doing those things, he mourned. He had a deep feeling of sadness and grief, the mourning that comes from that. And then he prayed, and I'm going to read through the first few verses of this prayer, because this is a prayer like Daniel prayed, a prayer like Ezra prayed, a prayer, I'm sure, that Paul prayed, and that many of the men of God have prayed over the people of God. He says, I sat down and wept and mourned for many days. I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven. And I said, I pray, eternal God of heaven, O great and awesome God, you who keep your covenant and mercy with those who love you and observe your commandments, please let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, that you may hear the prayer of your servant, which I pray before you now, day and night, for the children of Israel, your servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against you, both my father's house and I have sinned.

We have acted very corruptly against you, and we haven't kept the commandments, the statutes, or the ordinances which you commanded your servant Moses. Remember, I pray, the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, if you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations. But if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though some of you were cast out to the farthest part of the heavens, yet I will gather them from there and bring them to the place which I have chosen as a dwelling for my name. And the prayer goes on. But you can see where Nehemiah's heart was. As he was mourning, as he was grieving over a work that wasn't done, that wasn't completed, that was just part of sitting there, and no one was very interested in completing it, he mourned.

He mourned, and he went to God, and he fasted, and he prayed. And out of that prayer, and out of that fasting, and out of that mourning, he developed the incentive, the energy. He would be the one, and ask God, can I go back and lead the field? Can I go back, and I can I lead the charge? Can we get these walls built and finish the work? Out of his mourning, he was comforted, and out of his mourning, he was able to find energy and zeal to go on with his life, to go on with it, and to ask God to do that. When we mourn in the true way, when we look to God, we find there are things that we learn. We're comforted, we're comforted, but out of that comfort comes some energy.

Out of that comfort comes some commitment in life, and some direction in life. Out of that mourning comes some energy and zeal that may not have been there before. Maybe a renewed zeal, a renewed commitment to God, a renewed determination to do His will in our lives and in our collective lives as well. So Nehemiah mourned over the stalled work of God, and he found some comfort in that and something besides. Back in Psalm, Psalm or forward, in the book of Psalms, Psalm 42 and verse 9.

Psalm 242 verse 9. I will say to God, my rock, why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? I'm under constant stress here. People are saying things about me. People are oppressing me. People are holding me back. People are keeping me down. People are are afflicting me in ways that shouldn't be. And I find myself mourning. Why do they treat me that way? Because when we're persecuted for righteousness sake, it's a depressing thing.

We can mourn that they don't understand what we understand. Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As with the breaking of my bones, my enemies reproach me. While they say to me all day long, where is your God? Why are you cast down, oh my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? There's the answer. Hope in God. I will yet praise Him, the health of my countenance and my God. So we can mourn over lack of friends. We can mourn over the way we're treated.

And if we're treated badly, you know, Peter says, if we're treated badly because of righteousness sake, then we should consider ourselves Macarios, blessed, because we are doing God's will and not backing down and pleasing men, but doing what God wants us to do. Over in Isaiah, forward, forward in Isaiah, Isaiah 32, Isaiah 32 and verse 12. Sorry, let's begin in verse 9.

I'm going to read the verse with exactly the words that it has, and I will take any comments the women want me to give. I want to give them later. I'm just reading what the Bible says. Verse 9, chapter 32, rise up you women who are at ease. Hear my voice, you complacent daughters.

And don't let this think that there aren't complacent men. Okay? We're just reading, breaking into a thought here. Give ear to my speech. In a year and some days you will be troubled, you complacent women, for the vintage will fail, the gathering will not come. Trimble you who are at ease. That's a warning for all of us. Okay? Trimble you who are at ease. Think things are going okay. Nothing can upset you. Life is good. Life in here in the United States in 2017 with a rising stock market and everything else, it's kind of good. Trimble you who are at ease. Be troubled, you complacent ones. Strip yourselves. Make yourselves bare and gird sackcloth on your waist. Verse 12, people shall mourn upon their breasts for the pleasant fields for the fruitful vine. When they've lost what God has given them, when the bounce of the earth is no longer there, when the stock market falls apart and it's no longer at $23,500 to where it is, if it falls to where, wherever it would fall to, when things are not as good, when the grocery shelves are bare and our bank accounts are all equal, and that means the dollar is no longer worth anything, and we are all on the same basis regardless of what we have today. People will mourn. People will mourn. How did we get to this? Look at everything we've lost. How do we go on from here? There will be a feeling of unsettlement. The people in the world will be besides themselves for what happens.

The end of life is there in their mind. You remember the stories from 1929 when the stock market crashed and how people threw themselves off of buildings because they had no comfort, they had no idea what was going to happen next, and everything was just gone.

People of God shouldn't be that way because even though we may mourn the loss of job, even though we may learn the loss of bank accounts, even though we may mourn the loss of whatever it is we have, we know there's hope. We know it's not the end of things. We know that Jesus Christ is certainly, God is still in control of the world, still the things that are going to happen he has, and we don't have to lose hope. We could be comforted in that he will return, and there will be a period of time that the world has to live through those things, that we may have to live through those things as well, but there will come a better time. So there's all sorts of things that we can mourn. Here in this age, we can mourn the loss of a failed marriage. If we have a marriage that's going sour, we might, you know, if we say, well, it's their fault and all we do is cast aspersions on the other person, then you know we don't learn anything. But there's a period of mourning when we lose something of value, right? If we lose a job, if we lose a job, there's a period of mourning, you know, if we get laid off or asked to leave for other reasons, there should be a period of mourning that we think, what have we done? And if all we ever do is blame boss, blame co-workers, blame this, blame that, we don't really learn out of that mourning. We can mourn the loss of health, right? As we get older, things happen to us and we realize health is a very valuable thing, something we need to pay attention to. And we can mourn the loss of what it is and go back and see what it is that we weren't doing, that we should have been doing, and make corrections in our lives. Out of mourning can come very good things if we let out of mourning come very good things. And that's as we turn to God, and that's as we look to Him, and that's as we ask Him to lead us and guide us and not just frown in our pity and not point the fingers or look somewhere else, but to the only source of comfort that's out there. And that's God, the only source of true comfort that's out there. But if we're going to ever experience that comfort, first we need to mourn, God says, and out of that, and if we're ever going to learn it, we have to turn back to Him, as we just read. We have to turn back to Him. We can't just keep doing the same things and expect Him to be doing any of the things that He will do. Let's go back to Ecclesiastes, because you know Solomon addresses this very thing back in Ecclesiastes 7.

We read earlier about all the good and bad times of life. Ecclesiastes 7, in verse 2 and throughout chapter 7. It's a very interesting chapter, but in chapter 7 and verse 2 of Ecclesiastes, he says this, "...better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting." Now, who among us, if we were given a choice, go to the house of mourning or go to the house of feasting, who would go to the house of mourning? But Solomon says, "...better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting, for that is the end of all men." Now, isn't that an interesting thing for him to say? He must have learned through his life experiences, we learn something valuable from mourning. We learn something valuable from it, and we learn very little from feasting, except how to have a good time. And if all we ever seek is good times, then we've lost a very important part of life. Better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting, for that is the end of all men, and the living will take it to heart.

They'll pay attention to that. They won't just discount it and say, how do I end this? When people are mourning and we comfort them, we won't get out of it, leave it behind, let us mourn and learn something from it. And he goes on, he says, sorrow.

How about that? Sorrow is better than laughter, for by a sad countenance the heart is made better.

The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

Now, who in the world, what book would you read that and accept the Bible?

Something valuable to learn, and Jesus Christ said, blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. What Solomon is saying here is a principle that applies to all things of life.

When we sorrow, when we mourn, when we actually take the time to look at what led to that, and when we try to analyze and ask God, how did I get to this point? What happened? What can I learn from it? Good things happen. If we are honest with ourselves, if we don't always have the finger pointed outward but inward, what did I do to bring this upon me? Or what can I learn from that that will make me a better person? How can I be comforted? We find that we go through the period of mourning. We learn something about ourselves. We make changes in our lives if we're really serious about it, because that's what repentance is, right? We make changes in our lives, and then we keep moving forward, and we find a renewed zeal. We find a renewed energy. We find a mission to go forward with God's way. Maybe we've reached a plateau in our spiritual lives, and God says, you need to be shaken up a little bit. You need to be shaken up a little bit. You need to get on fire again. And maybe, just maybe, some things happen in our lives that God uses and says, if you'll handle this the right way, I'll reignite that fire in you. I'll reignite that zeal in you. I also want to see how you handle the situation. Will you mourn the way Jesus Christ said, will you learn something from that? Or will you just pity yourself and be down and be down and out and stay that way? What will you do? Will you seek me, God says? Will you turn to me? Or will you just keep doing the same thing that's brought you to that place in the first place? A general principle that applies of all of life's difficulties. When we see the error in what we have been doing, it should motivate us to change. Let's go back to 2 Corinthians 7.

2 Corinthians 7 and verse 8. I mentioned earlier about 1 Corinthians 5.

There's a man who had that Paul asked to be put out of the church, not to condemn him, but so that he had time to think. Think about what he had done and that Paul was hoping and the church would hope and they learned something from it when he was put away and he had to mourn over the loss of being able to attend church and be with the people of that time. He learned some things. He looked into himself and it worked exactly the way that God expects us to work among those who called us. 2 Corinthians 7. Where are we? Verse 8. Even if I made you sorry, Paul says, and he's referring to this place because the man of 1 Corinthians 5 is now back in the church. He's repetitive. He says, For even if I made you sorry with my letter, and the church mourned too. It's a painful thing, as I mentioned before, to have someone be asked to not come or to do something like that. It's a painful thing, but our prayer should be that God will open their eyes and they will see who they are and have the same result here in 1 Corinthians 7. Because if they don't, there's a problem with them. But they need to see it and we can pray that that will happen for them the way it happens here. We all mourn when that happens. It's not a pleasant thing for any of us, but we pray for them and pray that God will bring them to the same point that we see here in 2 Corinthians 7.

Even if I made you sorry, Paul says with my letter, I don't regret it. Because I know the church suffered because of that. I know they sorrowed for that. Though I did regret it. I didn't really want you to be sorry, but he understands there was something good that came of it. Because I perceive that the same epistle made you sorry, but only for a while.

Now I rejoice. Not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. That's where the joy is. You were mourned over what went on. I saw the sorrow that was in you. I saw the sorrow or the sorrow that was in that man, but it led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner. That you might suffer loss from us in nothing. For godly sorrow, mourning in the way God said, that out of mourning when we are close to God and we draw near to Him, that He will comfort us. If we were thrown into ourselves, if we look to the world, if we look to our own understanding, we'll never experience that comfort from God. We'll never understand it. But we go to God, and we ask Him to comfort us. And we look to Him for comfort, and not our own selves, or the worries of the world, or friends who want to agree with us, but by looking to God and asking Him. Well, where was I here? You were made sorry in a godly manner that you might suffer loss from us in nothing. Verse 10, For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation.

Look at what that man did in 1 Corinthians 5. He was in church every week. He was not on the road to salvation. Paul could see that. Paul said, you have to stay apart from a while. He saw, he suffered a loss, he mourned over that loss. The church mourned over him. Godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted, not sorry that it happened, glad that God caught our attention, glad that He woke us up, glad that He shook us, and remotivated us to what we were called to do. But the sorrow of the world produces death.

And that's exactly what the sorrow of the world does. Lo is me. I've done, been, done wrong. I didn't do anything wrong. I don't deserve this. This is all someone else's fault, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We've all heard it, right? Somewhere in our lives, and maybe we've even thought it somewhere in our lives. But you know, there's people whose sorrow really sorrow. The Bible talks about a few of those people who really sorrowed, who really did bad things, bad things that people should mourn over. Judas was one of them, right? Judas! He was really sorry when he learned that they were going to put Christ to death, but it wasn't a sorrow that led to repentance. It was a sorrow that he put himself to death. Esau. Esau was really sorry.

He really sorrowed when he realized that he had lost the birthright. But Hebrews 12, 37? No, Hebrews 2, 17. Tells us, well, let's read Hebrews 2, 17. Keep your finger there in 2 Corinthians 7.

Hebrews 2, 17.

Nope, that's not the one. I should have just said the verse and let you find out later that wasn't the first. Let me look at Hebrews 12. That's what a first thought was. Yeah, Hebrews 12, 17.

Hebrews 12, 17. He's talking about Esau, you see, in verse 16. He says, For you know that afterward, when Esau wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected. For he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears. Now he had a deep grief. He was really sorry he lost that birthright.

But it never led him. It never led him to the introspection. He blamed maybe his mom. He certainly blamed Jacob. But he never looked and saw anything in himself that needed to be changed.

He never found repentance. Out of him, it never motivated him to change. It never motivated him to become a different person. He just kept being the same person. And his descendants still blame Jacob for what is going on there. When we understand that God is at work in our lives, when we seek Him, and when we look for Him in times when we're feeling bad, the bad times of life, loss of loved ones, loss of job, loss of children who leave the church, loss of health, loss of financial well-being, whatever it might be, or loss of even something like the Man of 1 Corinthians 5.

If all we do is feel sorry, we're passing up a very valuable lesson that God wants us to have. He's not willing that anyone should perish. He wants everyone to come to repentance and receive eternal life. But that choice is ours. Esau never sought it. Judas never sought it. Many others haven't to date sought it. We should seek it. We should, out of these bad times, see what Christ is saying and what He wants us to do. Back in Joel. Back in Joel 2. Even in the Old Testament, it talks about this type of going to God and returning to Him. Joel 2 and verse 12.

Therefore, now therefore, says the Eternal, turn to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. Regret what you have done. Feel the deep sorrow, the deep grief, and the way you've lived your life and what you have done. And let that motivate you to turn to me with prayer, with fasting. Range your heart and not your garments. The heart is what God is looking to change. That's what needs to change. Don't just do the outward appearance of sitting in sackcloth and ashes. Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful. Slow to anger and of great kindness, and He relents from doing harm.

Turn to Him. Back in James. James 4. We talked about what blessed means, the Macarios. Comfort actually comes from a Greek word that means draw near to God. That He's willing to come along beside us. How He comforts us is He's right there. And we can seek Him, and we can be near Him, you and I, who have been called. James 4 and verse 7.

Therefore, James says, submit to God. The first thing we have to do is submit to God.

Give up our ideas. Give up our ways. Give up our own direction. Submit to God. Resist the devil, and He will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Clench your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep.

Feel a deep regret for what you have done. Learn from what you have done. Don't let it keep you back from doing what you have done. True, we might be ashamed of it, but let it motivate you, because we've all been in the same boat. Don't let it have you disappear never to come back.

Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.

Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.

Mourning is where in the Bible? It doesn't mean that God wants us to be in the state of mourning all the time, but when we're in it, seek Him. Draw near to Him. He wants to come alongside us if we'll let Him, if we'll learn from Him.

You know, there's a way we can tell if there's been true mourning and sorrow, mourning in the way that God said, because out of the mourning that Jesus Christ was put us through, out of the weeping that we might go through, out of the sorrow that we might experience, there's change.

While we see the change, we should all thank God for that person, for what we see in us, and for the energy. You know, I never went back to 2 Corinthians. Let's go back to 2 Corinthians.

7.

Godly Sorrow.

I will let Paul and the Bible tell us what we'll see in someone who truly has mourned and gotten the benefit out of mourning that Jesus Christ had said. I read verse 10.

Let's read verse 10 again. I'll go right into verse 11. For Godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted, but the sorrow of the world produces death.

For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner, what diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication. In all things, you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter.

Look what it did for you. Out of that period of mourning that you did it the way God wanted you to, you sought Him. Not only did He lead you back on the path to salvation, but you've got energy, you've got zeal, you're motivated. Everyone can see it. Let's thank God for it because things work exactly the way that they should have. And when we see people, not that we would ever look down. I would hope if someone came back that we would think they went through a process and praise God that they saw the light, that they did what they were asked to do, and now they're back on the path again. That's what should happen. That's what God wants to happen. That's what is what should occur out of the sense of mourning that we have. What can stand in our way? What can our stand in our way of that type of mourning? Let's go back to Revelation 3. Revelation 3, verse 17, the Laodiceans. They don't see how they're living their lives. They're kind of blind to it.

God calls them wretched. He calls them weak. He calls them blind. And He cautions them, you better mourn. You better weep. You better go through some tying times in your life and not try to skirt by them and avoid them, but you better learn from them. Verse 17 says, Because you say I am rich, I become wealthy, and I have need of nothing, and you don't know that you're wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. Look at yourself and ask me to let you see you the way I see you, God says. Don't just pat yourself on the back and say, Everything is great and everything is going wonderfully. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire. That's a painful thing. That's a painful thing that you may be rich and white garments that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed, and anoint your eyes with eyesab that you may see. It's pride that blinds us. It's that that keeps us from knowing what God wants us to do. It's our own sense of well-being, our own sense of self-sufficiency, thinking we are where we want to be and we've got the world by the tail, and this is exactly what we want to be. Not realizing God may have something different in mind, and that He may allow us for a while to do our own thing, but sooner or later He's going to correct us because He's interested in us having salvation. Not the things the way that we may necessarily think, but the way He thinks.

Now, when we mourn and when we sorrow and whatever, we need to make sure the pride is gone and ask God to remove that. Let me see you or let me see me, we might ask God, the way you see me, and lead us back to the path of salvation. That's what God would want us to have happen.

Jesus Christ said, blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.

You notice He didn't say, blessed are they who mourned, and they will be comforted.

We've all been through, but we've been baptized, I hope, a period of mourning, realizing how we lived our lives before, realizing that we needed to change and that in all ways we were different than what God wanted us to be and we needed to turn to Him.

But that isn't a one-time thing. Blessed are they who mourn for the rest of their lives.

But when they see the error of their way and when God makes them realize that, they mourn for what they've done, but they turn back to Him. And you know the period of mourning, or the mourning we have, isn't just for this age either. It's not just God putting us through mourning or that we experience the mourning. We find that in the Kingdom, mourning is going to be there as well. Let's go back to Zechariah. Zechariah 12. Next to the last book of the Old Testament, Zechariah 12. And verse 10.

Zechariah 12 verse 10. Speaking of the future time, as we'll see, because you're going to notice in that day, "...and I will pour in the house of David, and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and supplication, hasn't done that yet. That will be when Jesus Christ returns.

Then they will look on me, whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for His only Son, and grieve for Him, as one grieves for a firstborn." And they're going to realize what was done. They were going to realize what Jesus Christ suffered. They are going to mourn because they recognize their part in it. And they're going to mourn for the way they lived their lives, and maybe for the way they ignored the message that they might have heard or the example of relatives during this life. In that day, verse 11, there will be great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning at Hadad-Rimah and the plain of Megiddo. And the land shall mourn every family by itself, the family of the house of David by itself, and their wives by themselves, the family of house of Nathan by itself, and their wives by themselves, the family of the house of Levi in itself, and their wives by themselves, the family of Shumii by itself, and their wives by themselves. All the families that remain, every family by itself and their wives by themselves, they will all mourn. And you know what will come out of that mourning? The same thing that we read in 2 Corinthians 7. When they get it, when they realize Jesus Christ, when they accept His sacrifice, when they realize they must turn to Him and they let His Holy Spirit lead and guide them, they give up their old ways, their old ideas. When they submit to God and surrender to God, they will feel the zeal, the vindication, the everything that we read in 2 Corinthians 7, and they will be on fire for God's way of life, the same way you and I should be today. That's why they'll say, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord. He'll teach us His ways. He will show us His paths. The same thing that we should be saying daily and every Sabbath, that nothing would keep us from where God wants us to be. If we had that zeal, if we had that passion, if we had that determination to follow Him. But if we don't have it, if we're just coasting, we might just want to take note of it. Out of that, Jesus Christ will comfort. We read not too long ago, but in Isaiah 61 verse 2, speaking of the time when Jesus Christ returned, you know, remember one of the things He said? He says, I'll give them beauty for ashes. And He says, I will give them laughter or joy for their mourning. I'll give them joy for their mourning. Even in the kingdom, the same thing that He does for us, because when we mourn, joy is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. He'll do the same thing for them as He's done for us. If we follow, if we submit, if we do it the way that God wants us to.

Let's turn back to Jeremiah 31. And I'm going to say it again. I said it. Bear with me just a few more minutes. They got just one more short point after Jeremiah 31. Jeremiah 31 verse 13.

Speaking of the future time, okay? The millennium verse 13, Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, and the young men of the old together. For I will turn their mourning to joy. The same thing He says in Isaiah 61, the same thing that Christ Himself said in Luke 4, 18. I will turn their mourning to joy. I will comfort them and make them rejoice rather than sorrow. I will satiate the soul of the priests with abundance, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, says the Lord. They'll follow Me. They'll be content in what I give them. They won't be seeking something beyond and different. They will follow and be satisfied in Me. Lest there are they who mourn, they will be comforted. Now, I'm going to give you a couple verses, but I do want to turn back to Ezekiel here for a minute. Ezekiel 9. I hope you've gathered the essence of mourning when Jesus Christ says, "...Blessed are they who mourn, for I will comfort them." There is value in mourning. It should motivate us to something greater than what we were doing before. In Ezekiel 9, He gives us one more thing to mourn, and He makes a mark on people because of it, because of what they do. Ezekiel 9 verse 33. Now, I'm going to give you Psalm 119 verse 53, which you can mark in your notes there.

Ignatian David writes, "...has taken hold of Me because of the wicked." He sees what's going on in the world around Him. You remember in Matthew 23 verse 37, Christ mourned. He wept over Jerusalem because they just wouldn't listen to Him. And He came to give them salvation, and He just wouldn't listen. In Ezekiel 9, God has led Ezekiel to see the sins of Israel and what they do. And He says this in verse 3. Ezekiel 9 verse 3, "...Now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub where it had been to the threshold of the temple. And He called to the man clothed with linen, who had the writer's encore in his side. And the eternal said to Him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within it. Those who mourn, those who are sorry for the things that are being done in the society around us." And as you read through Ezekiel up to that time, you see the things that God led Him to see. He doesn't want them to participate in them. He doesn't want them to get close to those things that He talked about, but they would sigh and cry over those things. The way He would want us to look at this society and sigh and cry over what goes on in this world and how far people depart from God, despite all the things that He's given them. And the Lord said, nope, I already read that, verse 5, to the others He said in my hearing, Go after Him, do the city and kill, don't let your eyes spare, don't have any pity. Utterly slay old and young men, maidens and little children and women, but do not come near anyone, on whom is the mark, and begin at my sanctuary. So they began with the elders who were before the temple. God expects us to look at this world not gleefully when we see the problems occurring in it, but to have the mourning that comes with it, to be sorry for what they've done.

He's sorry that mankind is going to have to learn the hard way.

Sorry that they have disrespected and disregarded God so totally.

For all the things we've talked about today, the beatitude of Jesus Christ said, His people who will be in the kingdom, they will be, they will learn to mourn, and they will learn that they are comforted by God through that mourning.