5.21.2013 BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO MOURN

i was awakened early this morning with the agony of another blatant sin against the Lord.
as is happening more often i part prayed, part cried out (i like the spanish verb for this: clamar
..i think of clamor (loud uproar, outcry)...which is what it sounds like at tuesday night prayer
meeting when we have all shared our prayer request, holding hands in a circle, and then comes
the clamor! i love it!! for it it a fitting picture of how i need to be continually in my heart
before a holy God...fending off temptations by the score, confessing sins of thought, word and deed without number it seems, crying out for guidance, protection, provision, HELP (which has become my favorite prayer (if judged by number of times made) by far as i am often overwhelmed in
the spirit and my heart and mind drag along in the dust and mire of this wicked hell hole in which
i dwell.
this morning one big reason for my discomfiture was the remembrance of bonhoeffers treatment
of 'blessed are those who mourn' in the cost of discipleship. the accuser was all over me telling me that what bonhoeffer said excluded mourning over my sin. and as often happens, in my extreme weakness and wickedness...i was buying the lie. finally after a long time of mourning over my sin and yet being told that if i were any kind of christian...nay, if i were a christian i would be victorious over sin and never have a cause to mourn. (bonhoeffer, after some morning rereading, turned out to be just focusing on one of the many reasons a follower of Jesus Christ has reason to mourn...here.

after bon i read matthew henry and lenski on matthew 5.4. here is some of what they wrote. as i read, God poured the balm of His forgiveness and cleansing over my restored soul.

henry
II. they that mourn are happy
blessed are they that mourn.
this is another strange blessing and fitly follows the former.
the poor are accustomed to mourn,
the GRACIOUSLY POOR mourn graciously.
we are apt to think, blessed are the merry;
but Christ, who was Himself a great mourner, says,
blessed are the mourners.
THERE IS A SINFUL MOURNING,
which is an enemy to blessedness
-the sorrow of the world;
despairing melancholy upon a spiritual account,
and disconsolate grief upon a temporal account.
THERE IS A NATURAL MOURNING,
which may prove a friend to blessedness,
by the grace of God working with it
and sanctifying (making us more separated from sin to God)
the afflictions to us, for which we mourn.
THERE IS A GRACIOUS MOURNING,
which qualifies for blessedness,
an habitual seriousness, the mind mortified (dead) to mirth
and an actual sorrow.

ie. A. A PENITENTIAL MOURNING for our own sins;
this is godly sorrow, a sorrow according to God;
SORROW FOR SIN, WITH AN EYE TO CHRIST

zechariah 12.10 and i will pour upon the house of david,
and upon the inhabitants of jerusalem,
the spirit of grace and of supplications:
and they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced,
and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son,
and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn

those are God's mourners,
WHO LIVE A LIFE OF REPENTANCE,
who lament the corruption of their nature
and their many actual transgressions,
and God's withdrawings from them;
and who, out of regard to God's holiness,
mourn also for the sins of others
and sigh and cry for their abominations ezekiel 9.4
(oh Lord, i have none of this because i am bereft of Christ's love for others, HELP ME!)

B. A SYMPATHIZING MOURNING for the afflictions of others;
the mourning of those who weep with them that weep,
are sorrowful for the solemn assemblies, for the desolations of zion'
zephaniah 3.18; psalm 137.1
especially who look with compassion on perishing souls,
and WEEP OVER THEM, as Christ over jerusalem.

now these gracious mourners,
1. are blessed.
as in vain and sinful laughter the heart is sorrowful,
so in gracious mourning the heart has a serious joy,
a secret satisfaction, which a stranger does not intermeddle with (prov 14.10).
they are blessed for they are like the Lord Jesus,
who was a man of sorrows
and of whom we never read hat He laughed,
but often that he wept.
they are armed against the many temptations
that attend vain mirth and
are prepared for the comforts of a sealed pardon and a settled peace.

2. they shall be comforted.
though perhaps they are not immediately comforted,
yet plentiful provision is made for their comfort;
light is sown for hem: and in heaven, it is certain,
they shall be comforted., as lazarus, luke 16. 25


lenski
the verb denotes loud mourning such as the lament for the dead
or for a severe, painful loss.
the sorrow for our sins in true contrition
should not be excluded from this mourning.
..instead of excluding sorrow for sin, this is the chief part of the lament.
but, of course, we must include all other grief and sorrow
due to the power of sin in the world as this inflicts blows, losses and pain
upon the godly. (psalm 90.14-5)
it includes every wrong done us,
as well as every painful consequence of our own wrongdoing.
it is almost self evident that this mourning is not like that of the world
which howls loud enough when its sins find it ou:
'but the sorrow of the world worketh death II cor. 7.10

behind this sorrow of the godly lies the recognition of the merciless power of sin
(note: the unchangeable results of the fall)
 and of our helplessness to ward it off and to escape.
hence this mourning is a constant cry to God in their distress.

...the first of Luther's famous 95 theses,
that OUR ENTIRE LIFE MUST BE  A CONTINUOUS CONTRITION AND REPENTANCE.
as far as others sorrows are concerned,
'we must through much tribulation
enter into the kingdom of God. acts 14.22

..'I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. john 14.18
..the future tense is future to the mourning:
the comfort always at once follows the mourning.
(note: only in the sense of II corinthians 4.16f