0:00 Our heavenly father, we thank and praise you for this time you've given us when we can come into your presence and meditate on your word. And we thank you for the 0:18 words of the songs we've been just singing. Lord, we really mean them. And we want you to speak to each one of us, Lord, and refresh us with your word. encourage us, help us to be better disciples, better sisters, better mothers. 0:37 We thank you and praise you that you're with us. Holy Spirit, speak to each one of us and take control of our of this meeting. We ask in Jesus precious name. Amen. Um last the last time we met 0:57 uh we did a study and meditated on the um biatitudes the sermon on the mount. The first one of those where where Jesus said um blessed are the poor in spirit. 1:15 So today I thought of [clears throat] the next of one of those biatitudes where Jesus said, "Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted." Mourning is not something that's 1:33 we like to think about. Whenever the thought of mourning comes, tears come in eyes. But we all all of us sisters are acquainted with that sometime in our life. Maybe in our childhood or growing up years we have memories of things when 1:53 we were mourning and the Lord comforted us. Even before we knew the Lord, the Lord comforted us. Yeah. Looking back. So that brings a lot of meaning to us. Morning. Um just as introduction I want to say how 2:11 in the old testament old covenant God the Lord asked um Moses to go up to Mount Si and he gave him the ten commandments that was the foundation for the old covenant the ten commandments 2:28 and other things following that he wrote that on tablets of stone [snorts] and Moses came down and taught the children of Israel. In the new covenant, Jesus went to another mountain 2:45 and this time he spoke to his disciples and that was the beginning of the new covenant. It was not that he ful it was not just like he canceled out the old covenant but he fulfilled he explained this old covenant was just a the 3:04 alphabet just the beginning of what God wants us and the way God wants us to live. The new covenant is how we can live in a better and a higher level in the with the power of the holy spirit. In the old covenant, the holy spirit 3:22 wasn't poured out. But in the new covenant, the po hol hol hol hol hol hol hol hol hol hol holy spirit is poured into our hearts. The old covenant uh it the laws were gi written on tablets of stone. Now the lord writes with the holy spirit in our hearts 3:40 hearts which are not stony hearts but soft hearts and he writes the new covenant. And praise God that he has brought helped us to live allowed us to live in these days of the new covenant where he can write his laws and he can 3:57 give his strength the power of the holy spirit. He can give us the desire to uh live that way and the power to live that way. So that's by way of introduction. And why did Jesus just tell his 4:15 disciples? Um I feel like the crowd was not ready to hear these deep things. The disciples were living with Jesus for 3 and 1/2 years and they saw Jesus life and they experienced so many miracles 4:32 and whatever Jesus was teaching was they saw it in Jesus' life. It was not teaching but it was his life. So they knew they had this background of the new covenant. And Jesus told the disciples in Matthew 28, he said, "Go into all the 4:50 world, make disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe everything that I taught you." And he said, "Wait till the Holy Spirit's power comes upon you, then you can teach." That's why he began with teaching his disciples and and now 5:09 we have a chance after the Holy Spirit has been poured into our hearts. We have the chance to uh experience that in our life. I told you last time how I heard in in the church where I used to attend as a child how the person who spoke canceled out 5:29 the new covenant. He said this is impossible for us to live but we are covered with the righteousness of Christ. But it's that's not the truth. The truth is we can live this life with the power of the Holy Spirit. Not that 5:45 we attain it um one uh at one stretch but little by little the Lord changes us through our various experiences and trials that he allows in our life and the teachings that we hear from God's word. 6:03 He changes that little by little and he makes that more and more um the new covenant gets fulfilled in our in our lives. So uh to come back to our topic 6:19 uh blessed are the those who mourn and I told you last time what's the meaning of blessed is not just like oh blessed I bless you it's more than that blessed is you're really going to be happy if the if you obey this you'll be really happy 6:38 the true happiness you'll experience you'll be satisfied You'll be blessed with God's favor regardless of whatever outward circumstances we are. We'll be truly spiritually happy. That's the meaning of the word blessed. And much more the Lord 6:55 will show us and say Lord this earthly um happiness that we get is nothing compared to the true spiritual blessedness, blessed happiness that you're going to give us. So that if we follow this we are going to experience 7:12 that blessed happiness and we um in from God's part there are two double of what we have to do. The first is we are going to be blessed. Blessed and the second is we are going 7:29 to be comforted. Always God gives us what God gives us is double of what we ask to do and and many manifold not just doubled. The Lord's blessings are so much more and what he asks us to do and expects from us is so little compared to 7:47 what God wants to give us. and our and what uh the second thing is he we will be comforted and our part is mourn. Now mourn is not a word um that we like to think of. We like to 8:06 shy away but we know that all of us sometime in our life we were we were mourning and the Lord comforted us. The um the Lord wants us to get comfort from the experiences that he allows, the sorrows that he allows in our life and 8:26 not to make us um away go away from him but draw us closer to him cuz Jesus he came and he came on earth. It was said of him, he is a man acquainted with sorrows, a man of grief. And we too, God allows 8:44 us to be acquainted with sorrows so that we can rece uh receive the blessing that he has for us. Uh now um this morning I found that it follows being poor in spirit. The previous verse Matthew 5:3 says we 9:09 have to be blessed are those who are poor in spirit. That means when we come to the point we are utterly destitute beggars. There's no hope. I mean no nothing good in us. 9:26 Nothing good dwells in us. And we are really rock bottom in God's sight. Only then we can receive we can come to the next level when we can uh mourn over our sins. If we don't realize we don't 9:46 um if we are not con if we are not convinced of the fact that we are such desperate rotten sinners poor we need God we are zeros we are nothing. If we don't have that sense, what are we going to mourn about? 10:05 We have to the primary thing the Lord wants us to mourn about is mourning for our sins. All other things come later. I will come to that later. But mourning for our sins is the most important and primary thing the Lord wants to see in 10:23 us. I want us to look at a verse in James chapter 4 verse 9. It says, "Draw near to God. He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands. Purify your hearts. Double-minded people. Be 10:40 wretched, mourn, and weep." That's what the Lord says. And that morning is not just when we come to the Lord and we accept Jesus as our savior. That is just the beginning. These these days we read of people who just sign a decision card or raise their 10:59 their hand after a meeting and they think that everything is okay. They've got their ticket to heaven. That's not the what what God wants us. God wants us to really repent and mourn about our sins 11:17 and then only we come to have the to enter God's kingdom and to be comforted by the Lord and it's just and that morning doesn't mean that we just we condemn ourselves and we are depressed and say oh there's nothing good in me so 11:36 we feel depressed about that no that mourning is leads to true comfort from God. So we don't condemn ourselves. We Paul says in in Romans 7 to oh wretched man that I am who will deliver me. We come to the 11:56 point and we Paul throughout his life must have felt seen that wretchedness in him but yet we know there was a triumph in his life. He speaks about victory. He speaks about um rottiness of his flesh 12:13 on one side and yet thank God we have victory. We are more than conquerors. We are not condemned. There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ. So the when we there there should be a constant confessing of our sins, a constant 12:33 repentance. We never finish with repentance throughout our life. Daily repentance is like tears in our eyes keeps watering our eyes and cleaning our eyes. So the Lord wants us to have that constant sense of repentance. 12:51 And there are we can think of two types of sorrow. There's a godly sorrow which leads to repentance. That's what the Lord wants us to have. The there's another type of sorrow. It's 13:09 a worldly sorrow that leads to death. Uh we read that in 2 Corinthians 7:10. Godly sorrow leads to repentance and the sorrow of this world leads to death. 13:26 And a good example of that is Peter. He had godly sorrow. Even though he had denied the Lord and the Lord warned him, you're going to deny me three times before the grows. You're going to 13:44 deny me. And after he realized, he really had sorrow in his heart. He wept bitterly. Godly sorrow leads to that bitter I mean deep tears. That's the true godly sorrow which Peter 14:02 had and that led to repentance and he was a changed man after the Holy Spirit came upon him. An example of worldly sorrow is Judas. He betrayed the Lord. The Lord said one of you is going to betray me. He could 14:20 have repented. I don't know. God didn't give him the grace for that maybe. But what did he do? He too had remorse. He went back to the high priest and I said I betrayed a wrong person. I bet uh betrayed an innocent person and he had 14:37 remorse. He even returned the money that he had got. He put the 30 pieces of silver on the in the temple floor and went. But what happened to him? He just had that earthly worldly sorrow. He went and hung himself and that led to death. 14:55 So God wants us to have that um godly sorrow throughout our life. What do I mean by this worldly sorrow? The sorrow of the world. That's the wrong type of sorrow is that it's sorrow that comes when we are offended. When 15:14 our ego is hurt, when we don't get what we want and we cry. From childhood, we know we we ask for something and we don't get it. Big or small, we start crying and with tantrums or we don't talk. We're angry. We are sullen, 15:33 morose, self-pity. We hold a grud. If we hold a grudge and we are sad about it, that's worldly sorrow. If we can't forgive someone and keep that in our heart and keep on thinking of the person who hurt us and 15:50 we are not able to forgive that's that's worldly sorrow will always lead to death unless we forgive the Lord said if you don't forgive God won't forgive you so definitely that's a worldly sorrow 16:07 if we and young people if they lose a friendship ship or a friend whom they loved or they wanted to marry someone and they couldn't marry their sorrow in that but that's worldly sorrow that person may not have was not God's will for you that's why God took 16:26 that person away he denied something which was not meant for us an example another example of worldly sorrow is Ahab you know the story of Ahab in the old testament he was a king And he coveted the field of his neighbor 16:44 neighbor and he he asked him can I buy your field I'll give you another field uh property somewhere else but neighbor said this is my ancestral property I don't want to part with it and Ahab was so upset he went to bed and he was turned the other 17:04 way and he was so upset that he didn't even talk to his wife and Jezebel his wife asked what's wrong? And he told her, "This is the thing." And she said, "Don't worry. I'll take care of it." And you know what she did? She got false witnesses, got 17:20 neighbor killed, and uh got his field. And she said, "Here, Ahab, you have the field." So those are examples of the wrong type of sorrow, worldly sorrow, which will always lead to death. And we should be 17:39 careful that we don't have those kind of sorrows. It comes to us. We are in the flesh. And very often we are tempted to have this worldly sorrow when we don't get our way. Especially as we married, we are married and we want to 17:58 live our independent life and want to have our own way. And the Lord said, "No, you submit to your husband. You get his advice." And then the temptation to have that worldly sorrow comes but the lord says no there's a better way for 18:14 you come to me I'll take care of your needs so one way of keeping how do we keep on uh remaining remaining in that attitude of godly sorrow which will lead to life. 18:32 One way and most important way is when we think of meditate on Jesus how much it cost Jesus to die for our sins. It was our sin that made him take uh come to this earth live 18:50 that life on earth with all sufferings and die on the cross. He took that painful death. He underwent all that suffering for our sake and is good for us to meditate on the uh 19:08 death of Jesus. Read Isaiah 53 often. He was bruised for our iniquities. All our sin was laid upon him. Keep on. And I whenever I read Isaiah 53, I say, Lord, write that in my heart so that 19:26 I'll never forget how much you suffered for me. You became a man of sorrows. I want to escape sorrows. Help me to be like a a woman of sorrows so that I can partake of a little bit of the sorrows that you went through for my sake. 19:44 And if we meditate on on Jesus and his suffering then it'll help us. Um and and uh then another um way is 19:59 read Psalm 51. When David when he sinned he wrote that psalm Psalm 51 and said Lord against you against you only I have sinned. and it is full of repentance and he um that's another psalm which we can 20:17 read uh to help us have that spirit of mourning and repentance in our life. And another thing we can which will help us to remain in that attitude of uh mourning 20:36 is throughout [clears throat] our life is when we think of Jesus how he lived on earth how he wept for people. Think of Jesus when he went to the tomb of Lazarus. Mary and Martha informed Jesus that 20:54 their brother was sick and he knew what he was going to do. He told his disciples, "The sickness is not unto death." And he uh he delay he waited till Lazarus had died and then he went and he went and he 21:13 uh went to the tomb of Jesus and we he saw Mary and Martha weeping and he wept. John 7:35 that's just such a small verse. the smallest verse but it's such meaning brings so much meaning to us to 21:33 think that Jesus wept he weaves with with those who grieve he weeps with us when we go through sorrows he wipes our tears not just in the in the book of revelation he says God will 21:50 wipe away every tear but even on earth he comforts us and he weeps with us just like when our children are crying. We go to them and we wipe their their tears and we console them and say it's okay. Don't cry. Mommy is here for you. We can 22:07 come to realize that Jesus he weeps with us. He understands our sorrows. We don't have to go tell anyone and get sympathy from people. We can come to the Lord and say, "Lord, I'm going through this difficult time. I I 22:25 can't understand why you allowed this in my life, but I want to tell you. And he wipes our tears and we we have that encouragement. He who wept at the tomb of Jesus, he understands our sorrows. Another time when Jesus wept was 22:44 when he was entering Jerusalem just before his death. He went to he saw the walls of Jerusalem and he wept when he saw Jerusalem. He was not weeping thinking of um the cross that he was going to go through. 23:03 He warned his disciples, "The son of man will be betrayed, will die, but will be will suffer a lot, but will be raised the third day." He saw Jerusalem. And he wept because he thought, "I came to 23:20 these people. I came to my people and wanted to gather them like a hen gathers her chickens under a wing. I wanted to gather my people but they didn't want me. They they didn't want to receive me. 23:37 They left me. And so they are going to be scattered. The walls of Jerusalem will be broken. They'll be scattered throughout the earth. He saw all the sufferings that children of Israel are going to go through. And he wept for 23:53 Israel. He wept for his people. Such sorrow he had for his people and that's the com encouragement for us that Jesus he weeps when not only he suffered for us but he wept when he thought of 24:12 the condition of his people and he shares our sorrows. So meditate on the uh how much Jesus wants to share our s 24:26 sorrows and and in uh Isaiah 61 Isaiah 53 there are so many verses in Isaiah 61 I think there's a verse which says um uh Jesus came the prophecy about Jesus 24:48 He came to comfort those who mourn. Isaiah 61:es 2 and 3. He gave us to give us the oil of gladness instead of suffering, instead of sorrow. So the Lord um 25:05 Jesus comforts us. In the old testament also we read of and that's another way we can uh remain in that attitude of mourning when we think of old testament uh people in the old testament 25:23 when he saw the sin of his people how they grumbled and complain complained and god said I'm going to destroy this people what did Moses do he said Lord Don't wipe out this nation. Instead, you 25:41 punish me. Instead, you wipe out my name, but have mercy on this people. We read of Jeremiah. Um there are so many verses which about 25:56 Jeremiah which I have written. Um yeah, he says um oh that my eyes were fountain of tears so that I could weep for my people. Nemiah when he saw the condition of the 26:20 when he heard about Jerusalem and what was the condition of the walls of Jerusalem he his face became so sad he wept even the king noticed why are you sad because he had such sorrow for the condition of 26:36 God's people Daniel when God Daniel he was brave enough to to be thrown into the lion's den But when God revealed to him what was going to happen, he was he was like a dead man. He toward the last few chapters of Daniel if you read he 26:55 couldn't contain his sorrow. It was too much for his for him to bear when he heard not he was not weeping and sorrowful about his condition but he was weeping for the condition of his people. We of read of Ezekiel. 27:13 He wept and God gave them specific chances to breathe to some like Hosia. He said um I want you to marry someone who will be uh unfaithful to you. And um he allowed some prophets to lose 27:34 their wives. the wives will die just to show how much God uh grieves for his people to share the suffering of people his people. So the Lord allow allows wants us to read and meditate on think of these people in the old covenant in 27:53 the old testament prophets who went through Jeremiah even though he was thrown into a pit and you know where it was muddy and he was he would have died there he didn't weep about that but he he if you read the book of lamentations 28:11 he wept for the condition of the people how much they had gone away from the Lord how much they were indulging in idolatry. So the Lord shows us gives us a chance to think to mourn when we see 28:27 the examples of Old Testament people. We also mourn. Our time of mourning comes when we see the sorrows of others. There are people who are when we think of people who are and we ourselves have gone through death of some loved ones. 28:47 There's truly sorrow and we mourn with them. The Lord says mourn weep with those who um who are weeping and we share their sorrows. But we don't weep and s mourn like the people of this world who have no hope. When somebody 29:06 dies, when we read, we read in 1 Corinthians 15 about death, we mourn. Don't mourn like other people of this world. We know there's a comfort. The Lord comforts us. And he says, "You're going to see your loved ones in the Lord. If they have gone, 29:23 they they are with me." And we get comfort from the Lord. But the Lord wants us to mourn with people. I want to read these verses in Ecclesiastes 7. Those are very precious words. Ecclesiastes 29:40 7, it says, Ecclesiastes 7 verse 2, it's better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting. For this is the end of all mankind. We remember, we should remember all of us 29:59 are going to come to the end of our life. So better to go to house of mourning where people are where there's a funeral and that'll work and God will use us to be a blessing there. Sorrow is better 30:16 than laughter for by sadness of face the heart is made glad. The heart of the wise is in the house of the moon of mourning but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. That's really true. You go when we go to a 30:35 place where there's a party and pleasure, we gain nothing. But we go to a house where there's sorrow and suffering. We get a chance to comfort and we get a chance to bless others. 30:53 So we mourn for mourn with those who are weep with those who are mo suff sorrowing weep for those who are sorrow uh suffering. We think of people who are um have disabled children. We think of people who have 31:12 suffering because of some prolonged illness in their life. children uh who [clears throat] are exploited so much of injustice. We ourselves sometimes face injustice. We mourn about that. But we know there's 31:31 an answer God is going to give. Think of those who are lonely, who are mourning. We can help lead them to Jesus and tell them the Lord is a friend. He's even if we are lonely, the Lord is near you. Comfort them. 31:50 And we think of words like there are some verses which can comfort us. Those who sow in tears will reap in joy. That's a time of mourning. Mourning when we are preaching God's word or sharing 32:08 God's word. It's almost like when we are sharing God's word. That is the seed and the water that is watering that seed is our tears. In sorrow we sow in and [clears throat] then the Lord gives a harvest of joy. 32:26 We'll reap in joy. We think of the apostle Paul. He says what a lot of mourning there was in his life. If you read in Romans 9:2, there's this verse, Romans 9:2. 32:45 I have great sorrow and unseasing anguish in my heart, for I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to flesh. Paul had such sorrow when he thought of his own 33:04 people who were perishing and that sometimes God allows us to have that God wants us to have that sorrow. Many times, many many times I can say God gave me times of mourning when I 33:22 thought of people who had who are still not my family members who have still not come to know the Lord or who have backsliden and gone away from the Lord. I read of a brother in in uh one of our 33:40 churches when he heard that somebody had gone away from the Lord and had backsliden he couldn't eat or drink for three or 4 days he became so weak just like Daniel it was too much for him to bear to think that somebody has gone 33:58 away from the Lord that's the type of mourning the Lord wants us to have when they see that somebody has gone away from the Lord. People are still not converted in our family. The Lord wants us to mourn for them and pray for them 34:14 and say, "Lord, have mercy on them. Help them to come." We can't be complacent. Think, "Oh, my family members, they're doing well in this world. They are comfortable. All their needs are provided. They're well off. They've got 34:30 jobs." That's not enough, Lord. They don't know you. They don't know salvation. They haven't come to know you. Even if they have accepted you, it's such a superficial way. They have known you. They haven't come to know you. Lord, the fountain of 34:49 life. And then we start mourning and praying from the for them. The Lord will hear our prayer and answer just like that we do. We have to asking and asking the for justice. We keep mourning and asking the Lord, Lord, have mercy on my 35:08 family. Have mercy on my children. Have mercy on my loved ones who are still not. And night and day we can ask the Lord, Lord, bring them to salvation. The time is short. The world is hurtling down so fast. 35:26 end of this world is going to come so fast and still my loved ones are not converted. So the Lord wants us to have that spirit of mourning in our heart and pray just like Daniel had, just like Paul had, just like David had. 35:46 David when he um um saw the his family members Abselum dead, he nobody could console him. Such sorrow he had. The Lord wants us to have that 36:04 sorrow for our loved ones and others whom he brings about in our church. Um some of the ways we which are hindrances for mourning. I thought of the hindrances which uh 36:23 can come in our life which will keep away mourning from our hearts. The Lord wants us to have that attitude of mourning, but it's not a permanent mourning. It's a it's a heavenly mourning which is mixed with joy and 36:41 comfort. It's all in one packet. We mourn and we are comforted. We mourn and there's a uh satisfaction that we are partaking in something divine. we have a chance to do something for the Lord to share in his sufferings. So some of the 37:01 hindrances for mourning are if we have a hard heart, if your h heart is hardened against any um towards God especially, I don't care about people. I don't care what suffering there is. I don't care 37:17 the people are uh starving or don't hear God's word. If we have a hard heart then it's a hindrance to mourning the spirit of mourning or we can say and the hardness of heart 37:36 can come because we love our sinful life. I want to be I want to continue in the sinful life. I want to continue doing what I have. And we harden ourselves and we then we need to come to the Lord. Come to the Lord and say, 37:51 "Lord, why is my heart so hard? Please soften it. Help me to have a soft heart. The spirit of mourning will come into my life." And the second is if we give up and despair. Oh, it's too late. It's too late. I know there's no hope for me. 38:08 Like that uh pilgrims progress uh we give into despair, despondency, and say, "Oh, it's too late. I want to give up. I don't want to try anymore. So never give into that despair. I' never It's never too late. I've never 38:26 come to I'll never come to a place where I'm far away from God and God has given up on me. God will never give up on me. He has hope for me. He wants me to come back and have a really uh powerful time of prayer with him and closeness to him. 38:46 So that's the second. And if we are content with our shallowess in our Christian life, then the that's a hindrance to a spirit of mourning. You know in this world um people are think that I accepted the 39:05 Lord by just that cheap grace. Oh, I accepted the Lord 20 years back and I'm safe. I've got my ticket to heaven. Everything is okay with me. That's a deception. Everything is not okay with us. If we can just say that 20 years back or two 39:23 years back I accepted the Lord. Where where am I now? Am I living in sin and giving place to um to the devil in my life and committing sin after sin and think and go and think like I can confess my sin and God will uh wash my 39:42 sin away in the precious blood of Christ. That cheap grace that will be a hindrance to uh mourning spirit of mourning. We won't be mourning for about our sins about anything in our life. If we are complacent and we have that cheap 39:58 attitude of cheap grace in our life and we should never think that oh I am secure everything is okay. We should have that morning. Lord, keep that spirit of mourning in my life that those tears let it continue in my life. 40:16 Tears of repentance in my life daily. Let me repent because every day I need forgiveness from you. Every day I need I come short of your glory. I'm not what you want me to be. I've not yet reached 40:33 where you want me to be. And with that constant repentance and constant mourning and the Lord will pour his comforting into our life and say I'm with you. I'll change you. I'll take care of it. I'm take I'm there for you. 40:51 Another uh hindrance to our spirit of mourning is if we are too proud and say Lord oh I don't want it. I'm okay. I'm not in need of the Lord at all. It's so easy for us to be proud to get proud. Oh, I am I am somebody. I have reached 41:09 somewhere. I'm not like the other people. I'm not like my other unconverted relatives or other person in the church. We become too proud and think that we are somebody then that spirit of mourning goes away from us. 41:27 Another hindrance is like we delay. Okay, I'll mourn about it. Maybe some other time. Maybe the next time I go to the meeting and or next time I get some free time, but not right now. The Lord says today, today is the day of 41:46 salvation. Don't harden your heart. Come in repentance. So don't delay when the Lord is speaking to us. when he's near us, don't delay that attitude of mourning the Lord wants us to have. Now, mourning is not a depressing thing. It's 42:04 not condemning us, but it's a soft thing. See, Lord, the Lord wants to make our heart soft like digging up the hard ground, you know, of our heart. He want to sprinkle some water in it and dig it up and make it soft. That's the attitude 42:24 of mourning the Lord wants us to have. And then another way we hinder the spirit of mourning is if we think oh I want to be a happy happy golucky person. I want to go have some pleasure. I want to keep 42:43 watching movies and uh entertainment, indulge in whatever I like to do, good food, partying, pleasure. If I'm a pleasure loving person and always want something happy to happen in our life and go out 43:02 and you know just please our own fleshly desires and not give heed to the Holy Spirit. And we want if we are that type of person that's a hindrance to the spirit of uh mourning that the lord wants us to 43:19 have. Now all these are our part what god want god god wants us to do um our part is to do all to have that spirit of mourning. That's just one thing that I was talking 43:36 about. But God's part is that he's going to be blessed. He's going to comfort us. He's going to give us the comfort. And I'll tell you there's so much of comfort um which the Lord wants to give us. It's just like it's from God. So only the 43:56 Lord can give it to us. But when we go through the time of mourning, we get a begin to get teaspoon after teaspoon of God's comfort. First of all, God comforts us. He's called the God of all comfort. In 2 Corinthians 1:3, he says 44:15 the God of all comfort. So God comforts us. And Almighty God, if he comforts us, what more do we need? Our sorrows are nothing when God is there bending down to comfort us. And Jesus, he comforts 44:31 us. When Jesus, he said in uh John 14, I'll send you another comforter, another helper. That means he himself on earth, he comforted. As I said earlier at the tomb of Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus and 44:48 whenever people were sorrowing whenever he saw sick people in front just before he entered Jerusalem all those places he comforts he comforts his he comforts us. So Jesus said I won't leave you as orphans 45:08 till now I was here but I'll send you another person who will be with you who will be with you till the end of the [clears throat] age the Holy Spirit. So the third person who comforts us is the Holy Spirit and he poured into our 45:24 hearts that is so important so much needed. Lord, I need the Holy Spirit in my life every day. Now, there are some people who deny the Holy Spirit and say, "Oh, Holy Spirit is the first century, not for the present." 45:43 I can say the Holy Spirit is for us. Every day we need to come to say, "Lord, pour your spirit on me in my heart. I need the power of the Holy Spirit to live in victory. I need the p comfort of the Holy Spirit. I I want to depend on 46:01 the Holy Spirit every day. So we should never deny. We should never doubt. We should never grieve. It says don't grieve the Holy Spirit. If it was a once and for all experience, why would the Lord say don't don't grieve the Holy 46:17 Spirit and don't resist the Holy Spirit? All that is in the New Testament. Don't resist. If the Holy Spirit is leading us in a certain way to go down and humble ourselves, don't fight against the Holy Spirit. Say, "No, I don't want to." But 46:35 yield, yield to the Holy Spirit. Don't resist. Don't deny. Submit to the Holy Spirit. Every day we need that's God's part. So God comforts us. God Almighty comforts us. Jesus comforts 46:54 us. The Holy Spirit is the one the comforter who sent to comfort us. Um uh Jesus said um about the prophecy about Jesus 47:10 um the spirit of in Isaiah 61 it says um he gives comfort to those who are to release the captives and comfort to those who are grieving. If you read Isaiah 61 the prophecy about Jesus is 47:28 like that. So Jesus comforts us. Then God comforts us through his word. That's why it's so important for us to read his word. Whenever we are in going through some sorrow and the Lord 47:45 tugs at the at our heart and says and he reminds us we open God's word. Thy thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. God's word comforts us. Read God's word often. Read the Psalms. Read Isaiah. 48:05 Isaiah says, "Comfort my people." So God's word, if you read, every psalm is there to comfort us. And read God's word. So we should not um neglect God's word. Reading God's word, read God's word when we are in trouble. 48:24 And when we everything is okay also we read God's word so that when we go through trials say yes 2 months back God gave me this word I'm going to face this trial and I look to that and I get comfort so God's word is a comfort 48:40 uh Psalm 23 read all the psalms thy word is a comfort to me then God's people comfort us you know how much we need value God's People when we went go through times of sorrow like there was a 48:58 death in our family. We look back and see how the sisters in our church, families in our church reached out to us and comforted us, sent us a meal or just sent us a card comforting us or was there with us just held our hand. What a 49:17 comfort God's people are to us. Thank God God has his people to comfort us. So praise God for the church God has put us in. We are not lonely. We are not alone. We have our husbands. We have our loved ones. We have our church. 49:36 We have no lack. Even on earth, God provides comfort. Paul, Paul said, Apostle Paul, he he was so bold and strong in church in the in prison. He sang in the prison, he and 49:54 Silas sang in the prison. When they were beaten and but he says, "When I saw Timothy, I was comforted. When Barnabas came to see me, I was comforted. When Epo Fras came to me, you read that in the end of the epistles, Timothy and all 50:11 these, there are verses for that. And Paul says, I was comforted when I saw in the prison when I came and when Barnabas came, you comforted me. Paul says, Apostle Paul, mighty apostle Paul was comforted by his fellow weak brothers. 50:30 So although we mourn inward inwardly is a paradox. Although we mourn inwardly, there's comfort, there's joy. Uh and it says that uh affliction is a momentary light affliction. 2 Corinthians 4 17 and 50:49 18. The affliction is is so light compared to the eternal weight of glory that we are going to receive. So God comforts us like that. And why does God comfort us? so that we can comfort others with the comfort which God gives 51:07 us that we read in 2 Corinthians 1:4 the God of all comfort who comforts us so that we can comfort others so all the mourning is not in vain when the comfort that he gives us is not in vain so 51:25 what's the result of time is running out but what's the result of this comfort we have joy we have peace We are blessed as I said all those things happy spiritually we are to be admired when we have the comfort of the 51:42 Holy Spirit we don't look at our sorrows as it's a wasted sorrow because we got comfort from the lord he gave us precious promises he gave us precious word we write down and that's written in our heart and in our notebook we can 51:58 share it with others we know what it is to partake of the suffer sufferings of Christ. Say, "Lord, when I went through this, I saw how much you suffered for me. I came closer to Jesus through the suffering." We are more and more aware 52:14 of sin when we mourn. So, it's not wasted and we can comfort others. We can we can so don't look for comfort and sympathy from others. get the comfort which the Lord wants us to give us and we can share it freely with others. You 52:33 know this is the way God comforted me. It's not like somebody else got comforted and I'm sharing this poem with you. No, when I went through the sickness, God g comforted me. When my son went through the surgery, God comforted me and brought me through. 52:52 Even if there's no healing, when um at the [clears throat] point of death, God comforted me and said, "Don't worry. Uh you'll see your loved one. The sickness is not unto death. There's a resurrection. Death is not the final thing." So 53:10 there's so much the Lord wants us to um uh experience when he when we uh um take this verse. Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be com for they shall be comforted. There's a poem which I had 53:28 written um I think uh the gist of it goes like this. Oh yeah I can find it. Uh you may be you may have heard of this poem. In closing I just read um [clears throat] um a poet called 53:45 Robert Robert Browning Hamilton who he wrote this poem. He said I walked a mile with pleasure. She chatted all the way but left me none the wiser for all she had to say. 54:02 I walked a mile with sorrow and near a word she said. But oh the things I learned from her when sorrow walked with me. When when sorrow walks with us, the Lord walks allow sorrow to walk with us. Even 54:21 though we don't hear, even though it's all silence, we are so blessed. Oh, we learn so much when sorrow, the man of sorrows is with us. So, praise God. Praise God for all these uh things which the Lord has taught. And 54:40 um if you have a pencil and paper, you can just write down these verses which I wanted to share. But time is up. James 4:9, I already read that. And Ecclesiastes 7:2 about the house of mourning. And Zechariah 12:10 it says God will 54:59 pour [clears throat] um spirit of grace when we see what the one when he sees uh the one whom he have placed then Psalm 126 verse 6 he says uh if we go weeping we'll come back uh 55:23 weeping and sowing we'll come back with shouts of joy bearing um precious sheav with him will reap a harvest of joy. Then Psalm 30:5 says, "Weeping may be for a night, but joy comes in the morning." 55:39 And Romans 12:15 says, "Wep with those who weep." Um Isaiah 6:13, that's the verse I mentioned about the spirit of the Lord is is upon me to comfort those who mourn. And Revelation 12:4 says, "God will wipe 55:59 away every tear. There'll be no more mourning and crying." Isaiah 60:20 says, "Your days of mourning will be ended." And of course, s Isaiah 53, uh, the Lord, he will see the anguish of 56:18 his soul and be satisfied. So these are the verses which I wanted to read but our time is up but when you have time you can look at those verses. Praise God for this time. Let's close in prayer. Our heavenly father we praise and thank 56:36 you that you've given us these precious words. We thank you Lord that our life is mingled with joy and sorrow. There are roses and thorns. We thank you for the thorns you allow in our life. 56:53 The times of mourning which you allow which is also has a purpose and we thank you Lord that you are with us in our time of mourning and we are blessed if we mourn. Please help us to have that spirit of mourning. mourning for our 57:10 sins all through our life, Lord, never to graduate out of that school. And help us to mourn for this perishing world. Mourn for those who are still away from you. Mourn for those who are suffering. Mourn for those who are have problems in 57:30 their families and sickness. Mourn for the needy needs in other people's life. Help us Lord to come out of our selfish life and be be there for others. Partake of your sufferings Lord. Thank you Lord. There's so much you want to 57:49 teach us. We've opened our hearts to you Lord. Thank you for this precious time. We commit ourselves as living sacrifice to you Lord. Please take us and use us for your glory. We ask in Jesus precious name. Amen.
