TEXT: Matthew 5:3-10

SUBJECT: Watson on the Beatitudes #2

Tonight, with the Lord’s blessing, we continue in the study we began last Wednesday night. It’s called Thomas Watson on the Beatitudes. Watson was a Puritan pastor who died in 1689. About thirty years before, he wrote a book on the Beatitudes which remains as helpful today as it was when its ink was still wet.

The word, Beatitude means "blessedness" or "happiness". The Beatitudes, therefore, describe people who are happy—both now and forever.

Unlike legalism, the Beatitudes call for character. They don’t command us to do anything or to avoid anything. No, their call is much more radical than that: They tell us to Be Something. To be like Jesus Christ, according to His human nature. Can anyone become like Christ on his own? No. Not a chance in the world of that happening! We become like our Savior, only through the renewing, miraculous power of the Holy Spirit. If the Beatitudes prove anything at all, they prove,

The Beatitudes are not a self-help program; they’re not a formula. They describe what it means to be in Christ. Or what a Christian looks like.

No one’s character is perfect, of course—except our Lord’s. But the change is real. Unless you are kinda, sorta like the person described in the Beatitudes, you’re not a Christian—even if you go to church every Sunday and never miss a day of Bible reading, prayer, and family worship.

Facing the Beatitudes, we pray as Ezekiel did long ago.

Last week, we looked at the First Beatitude. Tonight, we move on to the second,

The first thing you notice about the Beatitude is its paradox (or, seeming contradiction). Who is happy in the world? He who mourns, which is a feeling and expression of sorrow!

Watson says there is

Or, a joy found in things most people equate with unhappiness. Who’s the happiest person in the world? The man who’s laughing all the time, of course. But the Lord says otherwise. And experience backs Him up. Men often laugh loudest to drown out the sorrow that fills their souls.

There is no harm in laughing. The Bible says

But the laughter has to be real. And not just a frantic effort to convince yourself that everything’s fine, just fine. The second

Beatitude seems to be a paradox, but once we understand it, we’ll see it makes perfect sense. And no one could possibly be "blessed" except for he who "mourns".

What does it mean to mourn? Obviously, it means to feel sad or to cry. We all do these things, of course, but not all sorrow and all tears are what our Lord is getting at here. Thomas Watson says there are at least three sorts of mourning that are not blessed at all.

1. General sorrow.

"Man that is born of woman is few of days and full of trouble". This is the sorrow everyone experiences, from Mother Theresa to Adolf Hitler. It’s part of being in a world, cursed by sin. Watson says,

"Many can mourn over an outward loss who cannot

mourn over a Crucified Savior".

The Lord often turns this sorrow to our good, but there’s nothing particularly good or spiritual in it. Mother dogs cry for lost pups; tomcats cry when they’re hungry; a worm feels pain when you step on it. The sorrow is real—and often extreme—but it’s not blessed.

2. Diabolical sorrow.

Watson says some people so love their sins, that they mourn over their lack of opportunity or inability to commit it. Here’s the quote,

"When a man mourns that he cannot satisfy his

impure lust, this is like the devil, whose greatest

torture is that he can be no more wicked".

The American novelist I know best is Ernest Hemigway. He believed in the active life of hunting, fishing, soldiering, and so on. He gloried in these manly acts, but not only in them, but in other action as well, such as heavy drinking, womanizing, and brawling. As a young man, he was good at these things. But, as he got older, and fatter, and more alcoholic, he lost his edge. And he couldn’t take it any more. At 62, he put a shotgun in his mouth and blew his head off. Hemingway’s last years were full of mourning, but the sorrow was devilish because he only regretted that he couldn’t sin more than he did.

3. Discontent.

A third kind of sorrow that is not blessed is the kind that is caused by discontent—or not getting your way. We all know people who sulk or pout or grumble because things aren’t going their way. Watson calls it "peevishness". He’s exactly right. Are they mourning? Yes they are, all the time. But their mourning isn’t blessed because it’s selfish. Watson says,

If blessed mourning is not these things, what is it? Watson knows,

Blessed mourners, therefore, sorrow for their sins and show their grief in some way or another.

The Puritan has been pretty clear so far. But he’s not quite finished. He says mourning for your sins is the opposite of two things. He calls them

We’d say "indifference" and "stubbornness". He who mourns, is the opposite of the man who doesn’t feel guilty about his sins, doesn’t care if they hurt others, and isn’t afraid of their punishment. Watson compares such a heart to a rock and an anvil,

If you ignore your guilt or smile at the prospect of God’s punishment, you’re not mourning. And, you’re not blessed either.

Mourning is also the opposite of inflexiblity or stubbornness. Some people know their sin, feel guilty about it, maybe even fear the trouble it will get them into, but…do nothing about it. They love their sin more than they hate its guilt; they’d rather go to hell with their sins than go to heaven without it. Watson says,

King Saul is a good example of a stubborn man who preferred agony to repentance. He knew he was guilty, he knew God had left him, he knew he could not prevail without the Lord, but, he just couldn’t let go of his pride. It became an anchor to him. And when he splashed into the cold waters of death, the anchor took him all the way down.

Are you aware of your sins? Do you feel rotten about them? Do they keep you up at night? This is better than nothing—I suppose—but until your sorrow has led you to change, then it falls short of mourning. And will never make you blessed.

Unless you think of mourning as something like clinical depression, it must be about something in particular. We don’t just mourn for the sake of feeling rotten, but we mourn over three things, Watson says:

• Our own sin, its guilt, pollution, the hurt it does others, and the chastisement it brings down on ourselves.

Just about everyone is sorry when he gets caught. He’s sorry for the trouble his sins get him into. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course, but mourning is a lot more than that. It includes sorrow for sin itself, sorrow for the dishonor it brings on God, sorrow for the pain it causes other people, and sorrow for the joy it gives the devil and his servants. Here’s a string of quotes,

Your own sin is the first object of mourning. The second is…

• The sins of other people.

The sins of other people often make us mad. Especially if they’re directed against us or people we love. There’s nothing wrong with getting mad about sin, but anger is not the only emotion you should feel. Pity should be felt as well. Our Lord was capable of fury, but that’s not all. He could also weep over the city that was about to crucify Him. Anyone can get mad about being sinned against; any Pharisee can cry down the sins of the world, but only the Blessed Man will mourn for the sins of other people. Here’s the quote,

In the messed-up world we live in, it’s easy to become indifferent or cranky or contemptuous, but it’s better to mourn for the people rushing to hell all around us. If we can’t win them to Christ, at least we can cry for them. On preaching to a group of hardened sinners, George Whitefield said,

He threw back his head and cried like a baby. He wasn’t being theatrical; he felt for men who couldn’t feel for themselves.

The third object of mourning is

• The miseries of the church.

Watson goes on to list the suffering in his own church and other Churches. We would do well to feel for our brothers and sisters who are sick, who are worried, and who suffer in other ways. That’s what it means to

Why should we weep over our own sins, the sins of other people, and the problems in Christ’s Church? Watson gives several. Here are some of them, with little or no comment:

• That’s why God gave you tears.

• Weeping for sin is a mark of grace.

• Tears are precious to God.

• Crying does us good.

• Tears help other people.

• Weeping for sin keeps us out of sin.

• Crying reminds us that a time is coming when God shall wipe away every tear.

Mourning is good for you, but it’s never fun. It hurts to think about my own sins and the harm they’ve inflicted on my family and my church and my friends, and how much they’ve grieved God’s Spirit.

But the mourning, though painful in itself, brings a two blessings. One is for now—"Blessed are they who mourn". Not they will be blessed one of these days (though that’s true), but they’re blessed right now. How can they not be blessed?

They’re honest with God and know, for Christ’s sake, He has washed away their sin. They’re involved in other people’s lives. And this too, though not always easy, make you happy. After all, who is more miserable than the person who’s wrapped up in himself? Charles Williams was a Christian novelist who died in 1945. He wrote a book about a self-absorbed man, a Mr. Wentworth. The name of the book is telling. It’s called

Those who mourn are far happier than those who don’t. In the here and now.

The second blessing mourners receive is yet to come,

Heaven awaits those who mourn. What is heaven like? It’s like many things, of course, but the thing Watson singles out is A Dinner Party!

I’ve been to dinner parties that have been real bummers. Either the food was no good, or it was good, but there wasn’t enough of it. Or the company was no good, or I felt rushed to leave or someone was playing obnoxious music. Most of us have been to these parties. It would be better to stay home and watch the paint dry!

But God’s Party will be too great for words! Watson reminds us of the Host (God); of the Provision (good, plenty, and satisfying); of the Company (angels and saints); of the Happiness of the Guests (Psalm 16:11); the Music (the praise of God); the Place (Paradise); and the Continuance (the party gets better and better—and never ends!).

If God’s Word is true, then you have every reason to mourn in this life. To feel for your own sins, the sins of other people, and the setbacks to God’s rule in the world.

The mourning will be real and painful while it lasts. But it won’t last long.

And on that morning, the sun never sets again.

A closing word. If you take these words seriously, you run into a temptation. It’s not new, everyone has felt it, and some have yielded to it. What is it? It is putting on a long face so that others will notice how sad you are for your sins and the miseries of the Church. The Pharisees did this—fasting in the showiest way possible. That’s not what the Lord wants.

He also doesn’t want you to judge others as insufficiently mournful. Assuming that if others aren’t going around berating themselves day and night they must be proud and shallow.

But what He wants you to do is to mourn directly to Him. He’ll see your tears, put them in a bottle, and write them in His book.