Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

While God will certainly comfort us when we go to him in our grief over losing a loved one, this mourning is about the grief we have over our own sins.

My example comes from 2 Samuel 12…to listen to the chapter, click this link —> https://www.biblegateway.com/audio/mclean/kjv/2Sam.12

David was now the King of Israel and as such he had an abundance of everything, including wives…in fact, he likely had the most beautiful of all the women in all the land.

There was a man, a soldier in Davids army, named Uriah. Uriah was an average guy, he was married to a beautiful woman that he cherished named Bathsheba.

One day King David saw Bathsheba, and he lusted after her… but she was married, so he knew couldn’t have her as long as her husband was living. David hatched a plan, he decided to send Uriah to what we would consider the front line of the battlefield, where David was sure he would be killed by the enemy.

And he was. Uriah went out to battle in service to King David who had actually set him up to be killed so he could take his wife legally. So, David took Bathsheba as his wife, laid with her and she conceived a son.

God doesn’t miss a thing, he hears what our HEARTS say….and he saw what David did to Uriah. God sent the Prophet Nathan to David to confront him about what he had done which Nathan did using a parable designed to give David a perspective on his sin that would cause him to see it clearly and grasp how completely evil his actions were. It was really neat too, because Nathan’s parable caused David to get enraged at the horrible actions of the Rich man from the parable who had an abundance of everything, but choose to kill and eat a poor man’s only lamb. David was so angry about it… so I imagine he was struck hard in his heart when he realized the rich man was him…..and his sin wasn’t killing a lamb, but a man so he could rob him of his single pleasure in life, his beautiful wife. Nathan said in verse 9, “Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon”

David then began to grieve his sin….and when his son was born very sick he laid on the ground fasting and praying for 7 days, then the baby passed away.

David, having heard from his servants the child died, got up, bathed, groomed himself…changed clothes and ate a meal.

Verses 21-23 ²¹ Then said his servants unto him, What thing is this that thou hast done? thou didst fast and weep for the child, while it was alive; but when the child was dead, thou didst rise and eat bread.²² And he said, While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept: for I said, Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me, that the child may live?²³ But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.

Eventually, David will see this child and get to hold him in his arms, but that time will come when David himself dies. For now David has to live and having repented for his sins and grieved over his actions, God comforts David, he’ll see his son one day AND God is going to give him another son, King Solomon.

When we come to the realization that our sins are vile and wretched….and they keep us from ever being able to abide in the presence of the Lord…. we should be grieved…. we should mourn.
And when we do mourn our wretchedness, we can then receive Jesus’s payment for those sins… Jesus then reconciles us to God….
Jesus took on our sin and if we receive what he’s done for us, he imparts onto us his righteousness so that we can now be in the presence of God. There in no greater comfort than this.

Mourn your sins….repent and receive Jesus.