The Beatitudes • Blessed are those who mourn • The ...

[Pages:6]The Beatitudes ? Blessed are those who mourn ? The Beatitudes

Tears in a Bottle

(Matthew 5:4)

E ach beatitude in Matthew 5 begins with the word "blessed," which can be translated "happy" as long as we do not define the word "happy" as the world defines it. In the eight statements of Matthew 5:3?12, we have God's prescription for true happiness regardless of outward circumstances. My term for this is "happiness-plus." We have noted that each beatitude is in opposition to what the world believes. Paul wrote that "the foolishness of God is wiser than men" (1 Corinthians 1:25). That which seems like foolishness to the worldly-minded--such as the Beatitudes--is actually the epitome of divine wisdom. Those who have embraced the Beatitudes and all that is involved in them can testify that they do result in happiness-plus. In this lesson we will study the second beatitude: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted" (Matthew 5:4). This beatitude obviously goes against human wisdom. In fact, if we substitute the word "happy" for "blessed," it appears contradictory: "Happy are those who mourn." Human wisdom sees little value in mourning and sadness. Few like to weep. We pay comedians to make us laugh. Most agree with the sentiment expressed by Ella Wheeler Wilcox:

Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone,

For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth, But has trouble enough of its own.1

1Ella Wheeler Wilcox, "Solitude," in The Home Book of Verse, 7th ed. (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1945), 2929.

Nevertheless, Jesus said, "Blessed are those who mourn." "Those who mourn"2 is from penqe?w (pentheo), which means "to mourn for, lament."3 This is "one of the most striking words for mourning in the ancient Greek language, portraying sorrow of the acutest kind."4 It was "commonly used for mourning for the dead."5 In the Greek translation of the Old Testament (the LXX), the word was used to describe the mourning of Jacob when he thought Joseph was dead (see Genesis 37:34). It was used to describe David's mourning when his son Absalom died (see 2 Samuel 19:2).6

How can intense mourning be connected to true happiness? I hope, before this lesson is finished, you will see the heavenly wisdom in Jesus' statement and how the principles in volved can contribute to your own happiness.

"BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO MOURN. . . ."

The Mourners Who Will Not Be Comforted As in the previous lesson, we will start

2The Greek text has "the mourning [ones]." 3W. E. Vine, Merrill F. Unger, and William White, Jr., Vine's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1985), 418. 4James M. Tolle, The Beatitudes (Fullerton, Calif.: Tolle Publications, 1966), 28. 5Geoffrey W. Bromiley, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich; trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, abr. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1985), 825. 6John Risse, "The Mourners," Sermon on the Mount series, sermon preached at Southern Hills church of Christ, Abilene, Texas, 1990, cassette.

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with the negative: what Jesus did not say. First, Jesus did not intend that a blessedness be pronounced upon people simply because they weep. There is no special virtue in the act of crying. The Bible often emphasizes that God wants His people to be happy. In Proverbs 17:22 we read, "A joyful heart is good medicine." Paul wrote, "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!" (Philippians 4:4).

Further, the Bible definitely teaches that some mourners will not be comforted.7 For instance, Paul said, "The sorrow of the world produces death" (2 Corinthians 7:10b). This is mourning because of the consequences of one's actions, with little or no mourning for the action itself. This idea might be illustrated by the student who is sad when he receives bad grades because he did not study. Jesus did not promise that lazy students who fail and are "mourning" will be blessed and comforted.

Examples of worldly sorrow regarding sin abound. Consider the drunkard who mourns his headache and his loss of job and family, yet makes no change in his lifestyle. After Judas betrayed Christ, he "felt remorse" (Matthew 27:3); but he did not repent and turn back to the Lord. Jesus said of him, "It would have been good . . . if he had not been born" (26:24). At the Second Coming, the impenitent will cry out to the rocks and mountains, "Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb" (Revelation 6:16). However, when the Lord returns, it will be too late to seek comfort.

Another group of mourners who will not be comforted are religious mourners unwilling to accept God's revelation in the New Testament. An example of this is the Jews who gather at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, the wall known as "The Wailing Wall."8 On special occasions, the following litany is chanted:

7Writers vary in their list of mourners God will not comfort. Some include determined pessimists, those who make a show of their mourning (in Bible times, tearing their clothing and putting ashes on their heads), and mourners in hell (Matthew 13:42).

8The Western Wall in the midst of the Old City in Jerusalem is the section of the Western supporting wall of the Temple Mount which has remained intact since the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70. It became the most sacred spot in Judaism because of its proximity to

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Leader: For the palace that lies desolate: Response: We sit in solitude and mourn. Leader: For the palace that is destroyed: Response: We sit in solitude and mourn. Leader: For the walls that are overthrown: Response: We sit in solitude and mourn. Leader: For our majesty that is departed: Response: We sit in solitude and mourn. Leader: For our great men who lie dead: Response: We sit in solitude and mourn. Leader: For the precious stones that are

burned: Response: We sit in solitude and mourn.9

The Jews wail because of the lost glory of Israel and pray for the coming of the Messiah and His kingdom, but they refuse to accept Jesus as the promised Messiah. Their mourning will not be blessed.

Regarding mourners who do not accept God's way, I think of the "mourner 's bench"10 of my childhood and the modern-day equivalent, "the sinner 's prayer." Great mourning took place at that old bench, and many tears were shed; but that is not how the Lord told us to come to Him. When Paul was mourning over his sins and praying, Ananias said to him, "Now why do you delay? Get up and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on His name" (Acts 22:16).

Let us consider one last category of mourners who will not be blessed, a group closely related to those already listed: those who mourn over their sins but do nothing about them.

A hijacker south of St. Louis, shot and paralyzed, suddenly became very religious. He prayed and read and called in preachers. (A costly diamond, one preacher told him, should be given to the church if he wanted solace with God; the preacher took it with him.) The man happened to get well, and soon he was at his illicit business again.11

There will be no comfort for the insincere

the Western Wall of the Holy of Holies in the temple. It is a center of mourning over the destruction of the temple and a place of prayer for the restoration of Israel's former glory. ("The Western Wall" [. html; Internet; accessed 24 April 2008].)

9"Jerusalem" ( wailing_wall_1800s.htm; Internet; accessed 24 April 2008).

10This was generally a simple bench at the front of a building in which a denomination met. Sinners knelt there and prayed for God to forgive them and accept them. The mourning was loud and long.

11Hugo McCord, Happiness Guaranteed (Murfreesboro, Tenn.: Dehoff Publications, 1956), 20.

mourner. Jesus said, "Not everyone who says to Me, `Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter" (Matthew 7:21). Again, Jesus said, "He who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him" (John 3:36b).

The Mourners Who Will Be Comforted Let us move to the positive. Who are the

mourners who will be comforted? The verse itself does not say, but the context indicates that Jesus had in mind spiritual mourning, spiritual concern. The primary focus of Matthew 5:4 is mourning over the spiritual destitution of verse 3.

The fourth century religious leader John Chrysostom says in one of his writings that the Beatitudes with which Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount succeed one another "like links in a golden chain". . . . Jesus did not group the Beatitudes haphazardly; He arranged them in a divinely logical sequence. Each of them builds on the one before it.12

James Tolle called the mourning of Matthew 5:4 "the emotional expression of poverty in spirit."13 We have an example of this emotional expression in Paul's words in Romans 7: "Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?" (v. 24). There is a kinship between this kind of mourning and the "godly sorrow" of 2 Corinthians 7. The KJV has "For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of . . ." (v. 10). The NASB has "For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation. . . ."

Mourning over our own sins should also cause us to mourn over sin in general: to mourn over the effect of sin on the world,14 to mourn over the sins in the lives of others that will send them to hell. "Righteous Lot" was "oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men" in Sodom and "felt his righteous soul tormented

12Joe Schubert, "Happy Mourners," Resources 2 (1981): 8.

13Tolle, 30. 14An example would be Jeremiah, who is known as "the weeping prophet." He wept because of the effect of sin on his nation (see Jeremiah 9:1, 18; 13:17; 14:17). In the Book of Lamentations, he wept because Jerusalem had been destroyed as a result of the sins of Israel.

day after day by their lawless deeds" (2 Peter 2:7, 8). Jesus looked at the city of Jerusalem and said, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem . . . ! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it!" (Luke 13:34). As He looked upon that defiant city, He "wept over it" (19:41). When Paul thought about His Jewish brethren who were lost, he said, "I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh" (Romans 9:2, 3). When we have this intense kind of mourning for the lost, it will cause us to reach out to them with the gospel (see Romans 1:14, 16).

In the Sermon on the Plain, Jesus first stated the positive of this beatitude: "Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh" (Luke 6:21b). Then He gave the negative: "Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep" (Luke 6:25b). Jesus was not talking about laughter in general in verse 25, but laughing about that which should not amuse us, especially that which is sinful. There is nothing funny about sin!

". . . FOR THEY SHALL BE COMFORTED."

The Apparent Contradiction Before we consider the blessing of comfort,

let me take a moment to address the apparent contradiction of the beatitude: "Blessed [happy] are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." This sounds strange when we first hear it, but any formula for happiness must take into account the fact that there will be unhappy days. Life does not always lead us through green pastures; we often encounter valleys and shadows. Any discussion of happiness that fails to recognize this truth is unrealistic and therefore of little value.

What relationship can there be between spiritual mourning and happiness? A few preliminary suggestions are in order. (1) The attitude itself can contribute to happiness. Think about the progressive nature of the Beatitudes. When we recognize our spiritual destitution (the first beatitude), a natural result is mourn-

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ing over our spiritual needs (the second beatitude). The first beatitude underlines the fact that we must depend on God and not on self, while the second beatitude is an initial step toward God. Mourning over sins produces a penitent heart which leads to obedience and forgiveness. Notice again 2 Corinthians 7:10: "For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation" (v. 10a; emphasis mine). The closer we draw to the Lord, the happier we should be.

(2) Remember that spiritual mourning requires a proper sense of values. If our priorities are right, we will not be so unhappy over matters that are really unimportant. (3) Keep in mind that the emphasis in the beatitude is that true and lasting happiness will come from the promise of the beatitude: We can be happy when we mourn because God has promised us comfort.

The Bible teaches that our God is a God of comfort: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction" (2 Corinthians 1:3, 4a; emphasis mine).15 In Isaiah we read that the Messiah would be One who comforted others:

". . . the Lord has anointed me To bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted

. . . ; To grant those who mourn in Zion, Giving them a garland instead of ashes, The oil of gladness instead of mourning

. . ." (Isaiah 61:1?3; see Luke 4:16?21).

In Psalm 56:8 we find an odd phrase that inspired the title of our lesson. David said to God: "You have taken account of my wanderings; put my tears in Your bottle. . . ." Bottles or flasks were uncommon in David's day. They were valuable, so only valuable things were put in them--such as a precious perfume, a rare wine, or an exquisite ointment. David was asking God to consider his tears of such importance that they would be placed in His bottle, never to be forgotten. I have heard that the Caesars sometimes caught their tears and had them put into bottles. These bottles were labeled and put on display. They stood as testimonials to

15As an example of God comforting His children, read 2 Kings 20:5, 6.

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the sympathy of the Caesars regarding the sad incidents that affected Roman citizens.16 You and I can be assured that our tears are precious to God and that they are gathered, as it were, drop by drop and stored in the "bottle" of His memory. He will not forget them. He is concerned about us. He will comfort us.

The Comfort Promised That leads us to ask, "What is the com-

fort that is promised?" "Comforted" is from parakale?w (parakaleo), which refers to "a calling to one's side" (para, para ["alongside"] plus kalew, kaleo ["to call"]). This word can mean to admonish, exhort, or encourage (see Luke 3:18; 1 Corinthians 1:10; Hebrews 10:25). In our text it refers to the Lord's "coming to our side" to comfort us. In the opening lesson of this series, I suggested that each promise in the Beatitudes has partial fulfillment in the present and ultimate fulfillment in the future, in heaven. I believe that to be true regarding Jesus' promise of comfort for the mourner.

(1) Comfort in this life. Regarding comfort in this life, the spiritual mourner has at least two sources of comfort. First is comfort from promises found in God's Word. For instance, I have already noted that sorrowing over one's spiritual condition will result in repentance, which will result in obedience to the Lord, which in turn will result in being forgiven of past sins. Peter told non-Christians, "Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38; emphasis mine). Regarding Christians who sin, John wrote that "if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1:7; emphasis mine). There is great comfort in knowing that all our sins have been forgiven. After the Ethiopian nobleman was baptized (Acts 8:26?39),

16When I heard about this, my mind went to a scene in the old movie Quo Vadis, in which Peter Ustinov acted the part of Nero. Nero had secretly ordered the assassination of a friend, but he wanted people to believe that he was saddened by the death. The scene showed Ustinov holding a bottle, roughly pushing on his cheek near one eye, trying to squeeze out a single tear to put in the bottle. (Quo Vadis, prod. Sam Zimbalist, dir. Mervyn LeRoy and Anthony Mann, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer [MGM], 1951.)

he "went on his way rejoicing" (v. 39). Also, I have suggested that the mourning

of Matthew 5:4 includes mourning in general over sin and its consequences. That kind of mourning will move us to action. When that is the case, we again receive comforting assurance from the Word. In Psalm 126 we read, "Those who sow in tears shall reap with joyful shouting. He who goes to and fro weeping, carrying his bag of seed, shall indeed come again with a shout of joy, bringing his sheaves with him" (vv. 5, 6). This passage speaks of the writer 's confidence that God would bless those restored to the land of Israel, but it reminds us of those who sow the seed of the Word today. I think of faithful soul-winners, conscientious parents, Bible class teachers, church leaders, and others who teach. These understand what it means for the seed to be watered by tears for those they are trying to reach. If you are one of these and remain faithful to your task, know that ultimately God will give the increase (1 Corinthians 3:6). You will "reap with joyful shouting"; you will "come again with a shout of joy," bringing the harvest with you.

Regarding comfort in this life, another source of strength for the spiritual mourner is God's providential care and protection.17 Paul wrote, "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28). In Hebrews 13 we read, "For He Himself has said, `I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you'" (v. 5). Jesus said, "Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:20).

(2) Comfort in the life to come.18 Again, I want to emphasize that the total and final fulfillment of the promise of comfort will come in the next life. Long ago, David wrote, "Weeping may last for the night, but a shout of joy comes in the morning" (Psalm 30:5). My copy of the KJV has this note on "joy": "Heb[rew] singing." Weeping is not a permanent visitor; it is here for the night, then gone, and singing comes to take up residence. In this life, there will always be the succession of weeping, then

17You may want to say more about God's providence in caring for and protecting His people.

18This is another section you may desire to expand.

joy, then weeping, then singing, and so on. It is only in heaven that joy will have permanent residence in our hearts.

In Luke 16 we find the story of the rich man and Lazarus. Lazarus received little comfort in this life (vv. 20, 21, 25); but when he died, he was carried by angels to Abraham's bosom (v. 22). Abraham could then say regarding him, "Now he is being comforted" (v. 25; emphasis mine). In heaven God "will wipe away every tear . . . ; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain . . ." (Revelation 21:4).

CONCLUSION

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." The mourning of this beatitude is, first, over the personal spiritual destitution depicted in verse 3 and, second, over sin in general and its effect on mankind. For this spiritual mourning, we receive comfort in this life; but especially, we are promised comfort in the life to come.

God is deeply concerned regarding sin and its consequences. The question is whether or not you and I are concerned. In Ephesians 4:19 we read of those who had become so callous that they had "given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity." The KJV speaks of those "who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness." What a tragedy! I beg you, do not allow yourself to become callous, to be "past feeling" regarding your spiritual needs. God cares. Do you? If you have been mourning over your spiritual needs, now is the time to come to the Lord.

? Notes ?

When you use this sermon, you will want to tell your listeners how to come to the Lord. Regarding Christians who are mourning over sin in their lives, the promise of 1 John 1:7 should be tied with the condition of 1 John 1:9.

The title of this sermon was taken from Hugo McCord's book.19 Joe Schubert called his lesson on Matthew 5:4 "Happy Mourners."20

The song "Resue the Perishing" speaks of weeping over the sins of others. This song could

19McCord, 18. 20Schubert, 8.

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be used before or after the lesson. The context of Matthew 5:4 indicates that

mourning over sin (which produces repentance) will be comforted. You may desire to make general application regarding God's promises to comfort His people who mourn. The faithful child of God may lose money or property, but he is promised treasures in heaven

(see Matthew 6:20). When a child dies, Jesus'

words are recalled: "the kingdom of heaven

belongs to such as these" (Matthew 19:14).

When a dedicated Christian dies, we remember

Paul's words: ". . . to die is gain" (Philippians

1:21). Therefore, when loved ones die, we do

"not grieve as do the rest who have no hope"

(1 Thessalonians 4:13).

David Roper

?Copyright, 2008 by Truth for Today ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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