“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4)
We have been looking at the happiness and joy of those who mourn. While the world would do virtually anything (but deny self) to keep people from mourning, it is actually the teaching of Christ that a biblical mourning is conducive to true joy and happiness. This is so backwards to the world that it will not listen to teaching like this. However, it is in perfect harmony with the character of God and of Christ as He lived on earth. We might also remember the book of Ecclesiastes on this as well: “The mind of the wise is in the house of mourning, while the mind of fools is in the house of pleasure” (7:4).
This week we will look at spiritual activities that the Bible links with mourning. We could also say that these activities cannot be done at times and in certain important ways without mourning. The Bible links prayer, repentance, fasting, seeking God, and reflecting or meditating on sin with mourning. Now try to imagine a believer being happy apart from prayer and seeking God. It is simply impossible, yet mourning is necessary for those activities at important times in the life of the believer. There are times that prayer without mourning is simply words thrown above our heads. There are times that if we are fasting without mourning we are simply going hungry. There are times when we say we are seeking God without true mourning, we are simply seeking God for selfish purposes.
Zechariah 12:10 sets out how mourning is linked with prayer: “I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.” Notice that the Spirit of grace and supplication (form of prayer) is given so that (the purpose of it) they will mourn and weep bitterly. Nehemiah 1:4 tells us how mourning and praying with fasting go together: “When I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days; and I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven.” If the love of God and His glory are at the center of what we do, there will be times when we weep and mourn while we fast and pray. The state of the Church is something that the church needs to turn from its programs and begin to ask God for hearts that mourn and weep for the Church. Nehemiah was weeping and mourning over the state of the walls at Jerusalem, so surely we should weep and mourn over the state of the Church today.
Sorrow is a type of mourning and is linked with true repentance. “I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. 10 For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death” (II Corinthians 7:9-10). A true sorrow that is moved by love leads to true repentance, but a false type of sorrow (selfish) leads to a repentance that is repented of. It takes a true sorrow or mourning to repent from the heart.
We have seen how fasting is linked with mourning. “So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes” (Daniel 9:3). “In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia a message was revealed to Daniel, who was named Belteshazzar; and the message was true and one of great conflict, but he understood the message and had an understanding of the vision. 2 In those days, I, Daniel, had been mourning for three entire weeks. 3 I did not eat any tasty food, nor did meat or wine enter my mouth, nor did I use any ointment at all until the entire three weeks were completed” (Dan 10:1-3). In these verses we see that mourning, fasting, and seeking God are linked together. Fasting is not some sort of spiritual activity that one does because it makes one spiritual, but because it is a biblically prescribed way of seeking God when done from the heart. Fasting is not done in order to get something from God; it is done in order to seek God Himself.
We must be very careful at this point or we will become like the Pharisees who hired mourners and went around mourning when they fasted in order to obtain attention. A true mourning has the proper heart which is a heart that mourns because of the dishonor done to God and because the heart seeks God and His glory above all things. We can see how fasting can become what is known as a spiritual discipline and so people discipline themselves to fast. However, that is a worthless activity if it is not done out of a mourning heart that is seeking for God Himself. When people fast in an effort to become more spiritual and to wrest things from God, they are turning it into a work. True fasting must be joined with true mourning which arises from a true love for God and His glory.
I think, then, that it should be clear where mourning fits in with fasting and seeking God. It is a mourning heart that has sorrow for what it or others have done in dishonoring God or perhaps mourns and has sorrow for the state of the Church. It is the mourning heart that is needed in order to fast in a way where fasting is really a way of seeking God. The mourning heart mourns because its Beloved is not fully present and is not being honored and glorified as it should be. Without the heart that loves so much that it mourns, fasting is done for selfish purposes and seeking God is really seeking God for selfish purposes. Mourning is utterly necessary for these things to be truly done.
“Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “Return to Me with all your heart, And with fasting, weeping and mourning” (Joel 2:12). Here the Lord teaches us how to return to Himself. He tells us to return to Him with all of our heart. Okay, but that is easy to say and impossible to do apart from His grace. He tells us that we return to Him with “fasting, weeping, and mourning.” There is the prescription for the modern Church as well, but how opposite that is with the positive thinking, self-esteem, and prosperity teaching. It is even more at odds with the crowds that teach that men are little gods and that we influence reality by our positive words. God Himself teaches us to return to Himself with fasting and mourning. There is no easy way to do this; it must be grace in the heart that works these things in the heart. We cannot work up true mourning; it must come from a heart of love for God.
But, one might say, that is the Old Testament and is not the positive message of the New Testament. Fine, but listen to James: “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you” (4:8-10). Again the subject matter is drawing near to God. That is done by cleansing the hands and purifying the heart. How is that done? By being miserable, mourning, weeping, letting your laughter be turned into mourning, and by humbling self in the presence of the Lord. Indeed we are to have joy in the Lord, but this verse needs to be heard as well. It is not just a worked up joy, or just any joy, but it is a joy in the Lord. True joy in the Lord comes when He exalts the person and that will only happen when it is preceded by mourning and weeping.
We need to learn from Ezra how we are to behave toward God for our own sin and the sins of others. Ezra 10:1 Now while Ezra was praying and making confession, weeping and prostrating himself before the house of God, a very large assembly, men, women and children, gathered to him from Israel; for the people wept bitterly. 2 Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, said to Ezra, “We have been unfaithful to our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land; yet now there is hope for Israel in spite of this.
6 Then Ezra rose from before the house of God and went into the chamber of Jehohanan the son of Eliashib. Although he went there, he did not eat bread nor drink water, for he was mourning over the unfaithfulness of the exiles” (Ezra 10:1-2, 6). In this passage we see that Ezra was praying and in that prayer he confessed sin. While making that confession he was weeping and the people wept bitterly. In other words, they were mourning for sin. In verse 6 we see that he was mourning for the sin of other people. Imagine that he was appalled and mourning for the sin of others! Would it be to God that people would have a heart like that in our day. Oh for a people that would mourn for their own sins, the sins of others, the sins of the nation, and especially the sins of the Church.
Without drawing this out any longer, surely it is obvious that mourning is important to major and important aspects of the Christian life and Church. Mourning is at the heart of certain types of prayer, of fasting, of repentance, of seeking God, and of how we deal with our sin and the sins of others. On the other hand, as I have tried to show in previous weeks, without mourning that is no true joy. Can we imagine that a person would have joy as a Christian if s/he did not pray, repent, or seek God? Yet can we imagine a person that did not have true joy that had the spirit of true prayer, repentance, and of seeking God? I think the Bible leaves us with an uncomfortable tension. We must seek to be a true mourner in order to have true blessedness and joy. If we seek the joy apart from a heart that truly mourns, we will not have true joy. That is backwards according to the world, and yet it is the way that God works in the hearts of those that He gives the joy of knowing Him. It is also the way that He works in hearts when He is preparing those hearts for revival. Revival will not visit our nation and church until we have hearts that love God enough to mourn over sin which is against Him and His glory.
God Loves... Himself 
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