SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/3/2020
11:15 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Improper
Mourning
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 5:4
Message of the
verses: “4
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
You may remember that in our last SD
that we looked at a preview of the things that we will be looking at as we go
through this section of Scripture guided by some of the things that are written
in John MacArthur’s commentary. We are
going to look at some of the things that Jesus meant from this verse and some
of the things that He did not mean as we look through a series of main-sections
and sub-sections from the main sections.
The first section we will be introducing today is “The Meaning of
Mourning” and then we will look at the first sub-section “Improper Mourning.”
I will quote the introduction from
MacArthur’s commentary on this first main section “The Meaning of Mourning.” “Certain kinds of sorrow are common to all
mankind, experienced by believer and unbeliever alike. Some of those sorrows are normal and
legitimate, sorrows which concern the Lord and for which He knows our
need. Others are abnormal and
illegitimate, brought about solely because of sinful passions and objectives.” So now we move on to talk about improper
mourning.
I don’t really like to bring about politics into my Spiritual
Diaries but when I look at what the meaning of improper mourning there is a
good example in America politics that has been going on for three years as a
certain party has never gotten over the people’s choice of who is our President
and so they continue to scheme to try and over through the 2016 election in a
number of illegal ways and when they fail they most assuredly mourn over their
lost efforts. This is improper
mourning. To those who mourn in these
improper ways the Lord gives no help or solace.
An
example from Scripture is the story of David’s son Amnon “2 Amnon was so frustrated because of his sister Tamar that
he made himself ill, for she was a virgin, and it seemed hard to Amnon to do anything
to her.” We see here that Amnon’s
grief was caused by incestuous, unfulfilled lust.
I
can only realize from seeing this happen and that is that when a person’s mate
dies, even a Christian’s mate dies that there are times when they are so
distressed that it will ruin the remainder of their lives. If the Lord allows a person’s mate to come
home to be with Him that has to be in His will and thus after a time of
mourning that person moves on. Some will
re-marry; some will go on and continue to do things for the Lord. I have a friend of mine, who really was not a
close friend that lost his wife three years ago tomorrow. The Lord laid upon my heart to pray very diligently
for him which I did and even wrote letters to him. Mike knew of my prayers for him and was
thankful. My prayers to the Lord were that
he would begin to write again as he posts something daily on the internet and
then my prayers for him would be also that he would go out and begin to speak
again as he was a retired Pastor. The
Lord graciously answered my prayers and today Dr. Mike is filling in at a
church near us who has lost their pastor.
Yesterday I wrote a note to him telling him that I still think of him
and pray for him many times during the week.
Now
going back to the story about Amnon as this story continues to develop we find
Amnon rapping his half sister and then his love turned into hate, really his
lust turned into hate. Her brother
Absalom eventually killed Amnon and then ran away. David finally allows him to return and
eventually Absalom tries to take over the kingdom and actually runs David out
of Jerusalem. A war begins and Absalom
is eventually killed. All of this to say
that David heavily mourns over the lost of Absalom so much that he wishes
himself dead over Absalom. Joab finally
rebuked the king in saying “5 Then Joab came into the
house to the king and said, "Today you have covered with shame the faces
of all your servants, who today have saved your life and the lives of your sons
and daughters, the lives of your wives, and the lives of your concubines, 6 by
loving those who hate you, and by hating those who love you. For you have shown
today that princes and servants are nothing to you; for I know this day that if
Absalom were alive and all of us were dead today, then you would be pleased.” MacArthur adds “The wickedly ambitious
Absalom had raised a rebel army, driven the king—his own father—out of
Jerusalem, and taken over the palace.
“David’s
love for his son was understandable, but his judgment had been perverted. Probably because of his great feeling of
guilt for having been such a poor father, and because he knew that Absalom’s
tragedy was part of the judgment God sent because of David’s adulterous and
murderous affair with Bathsheba, the kings’ mourning over Absalom was abnormal. The judgment that came on Absalom was
entirely deserved.” As you think about
this a bit more we can understand that
if Absalom would have won then the very happy time that David received from the
Lord about always having a man on the throne, including the Messiah would then
not have happened.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: It is important to me to understand the right
things that I am to mourn over, and that does not always mean that a person has
to die to mourn over something. I can
also say that because of the age of my recently passed father-in-law that I
have had trouble mourning over his death.
I struggle with that to this day.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Continue to
learn more about contentment, humility, and mourning along with having joy over
the studying of the Word of God.
4/3/2020 12:07 PM
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