scriptures in Matthew chapter 5. Matthew chapters 5 and verses 1 to 12. We'll soon be reading from there a couple of what is called in the Latin books I read errata. Couple of errors I would like to make sure are pointed out. There's, you know, the man of God is a mere human and a mere man, and therefore he makes mistakes. And you need to be Bereans and see that and call that out. For example, last week I said revelations instead of revelation. There are small things, but there's some larger things as well. For example, like three weeks ago, as it was brought to my attention, I held this up And I said, this was the decree of Synod. Well, I was mistaken. This was actually in a denominational magazine we had called Covenanter. Okay. But it was used, this article was used for, and this is, where I needed to be more clear. It was used in the Reformation principles exhibited by the Reformed Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. So that is one error that I made. And this is something I want you to watch out for in preaching. No matter who the man is, he's not beyond error. And so make sure that you listen for the truth and nothing but the truth. Here is the truth. This word. What is not according to the law and the testimony, let it be gone. But what is according to the law and testimony, we must form our lives after. And so we'll be reading from this precious word, this infallible word in these first 12 verses. If you're able, I do invite you, as is our tradition here, to stand at the reading of the word. Hear the word of the Lord. And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain, and when he was set, his disciples came unto him, and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. Thus is the reading of God's word. Father in heaven, now bless this word unto us as we look at just one of these, as they are called Beatitudes. We thank you for these instructions on how we may be happy souls. Show us now, Father, by your Holy Spirit. Show us how to be happy, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. We've been looking in the weeks past in certain of these instructions to happiness. We're gonna be looking at just one more today. We're gonna look at verse four. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. I've entitled this sermon A Fountain of Happiness Found, because as I looked into what the scripture says about this blessed are they who mourn, I noticed that the Hebrew word for the I is The same word it has for fountain. And so the I tends to be for those who are happy in Christ, a fountain of happiness. But how is that possible? Well, that is the great thing we are to look at today. This is the great theme that I see in the scriptures as I look not only to this text, but having the understanding of what Jesus is saying from all the scriptures which he has authored, that Christians must mourn over their sins and others sins now in order to find true happiness. Are you mourning today? Are you a mourning Christian? And children, I mean M-O-U-R-N. Are you a soul that is brought low and with heaviness over your sins? There's so many stories of those who are not. I'd like to share one with you here today. Among the Spaniards who flocked to America in the hope of finding gold, there was a certain officer, and children, you might have learned some of this in American history. His name is Juan Ponce de Leon. He had distinguished himself in the Spanish army. He was a very rich man. He should have been happy, right? He had all the riches in the world. Every rich, all the money a man could want in that age especially, he had. De Leon had it. He not only had Haiti, That little island, right? He not only had all of Haiti, but all of Puerto Rico as well. He was given commission to be the governor of Puerto Rico, and he built a great big castle there. It's called the Great White Castle, not the restaurant. It's actually the place where he lived. It was like a castle, and he had made it. Now, this was, of course, to the great detriment of the people. The native people of that island were tortured, killed. He was not a kind man. And not only was he not a kind man, but despite all his wealth, despite his castles, despite his private islands with the slaves of the native peoples that he made, still he was not happy. At 50 years of age, he was a miserable old man. There was no joy in him. And one day, as he was sitting unhappy in his white castle, a thing occurred to him, a spark of hope, when one of his servants, his slaves, one of the natives said, in Bimini, no one grows old. Bimini? What is Bimini, he said. And she went on to describe it. It's a beautiful island that lies far, far away to the north of us. And he said, tell me about it. And she said, there is a fountain there, a spring of clear water, the most wonderful in the world. Everyone that bathes in it becomes as young and strong as he was in his best days. No one grows old in Bimini. And so starts the great journey of Ponce de Leon to find the fountain of youth, the vat that will make him like he was when he was in his 20s, conquering the peoples. He goes to Florida, he can't find it. He takes one journey there and no fountain of youth for him. He goes back to Puerto Rico unhappy. Are you unhappy today because you haven't found your Bimini? But you see, I have something greater than Bimini here for you today. It's a fountain of happiness, but this isn't like a happiness that you see here in the world. It's not that happiness, which is temporary. Children, the word we would use is fleeting. It goes away. It doesn't go away. This fountain of happiness is eternal. And I want you to be able to find it here today. So I have only two points for you as we look at this scripture. The first one is I wanna describe the fountain that is here. You'll see in verse four, it says, blessed are they that mourn. There's the fountain. There's the fountain. You want to be blessed? You wanna be happy? That's what the original means there. You want to be happy? You must be a mourner. Are you one that mourns? Then you're happy if you mourn in a certain way. Is this saying everyone that's sad and mourning? It's not what it's saying. Indeed, I want to warn you about certain fountains. There's fountains of the eyes. There's mourning, which is not blessed. It is hell's fountains. And the scripture, as I searched into the scriptures, it's replete with examples. And so I've named them hell's fountains. Children, I know you like to take notes. I'm gonna start both. is a description, a description of this fountain, the description of a blessed mourner. The description, I need to start by showing you what it's not. It's not hell's fountain. It's not hell's mourners. Hell's Fountains is found in the person of Cain, who mourned in Genesis 4.13. He mourned because he killed a man, but he said, when the punishment came, my punishment is greater than I can bear. That's not the mourning that's blessed. There's Pharaoh's mourning in Exodus 14.5, which is also Hell's Fountain. From the eyes of Pharaoh, he repents of his good actions. He said, okay, the people can go. And as soon as he said the people can go, he said, I repent of this. And he said, oh, who's gonna be building our cities? He realized that the good decision he made would cost him of his wealth and what he has set up to benefit from slavery. This is not the morning which is blessed. There's Saul's mourning, 1 Samuel 15, 24 and 30. I love this example because Saul actually knows that he did wrong. And he goes to Samuel and he says, I'm so sorry. I know that I sinned. But we notice as we read Saul's life that this was a repentance, not for happiness. This isn't a blessed morning. This is something which is a fountain from hell. You are repenting. You are mourning to get honor. And that's exactly what he goes on to say in 1 Samuel 15 verse 30. He says, Samuel, please, I know that the kingdom is taken from me because of my sin. I know that, I know that I've sinned, but at least be with me now that I may get honor in the sanctuary, that I may still sit at the king's pillar, that I may still be honored as I'm still king. and has not yet been taken from me. This is a unblessed mourning. It is a fountain from hell. Such is Amnon's mourning. Perhaps, children, you remember this story, Amnon and Tamar. Amnon wanted his half-sister so bad, he wanted to make her his wife against the law of God. and do it in a way that was against the law of God. And he was just so sick, he laid on his bed and he acted sick, and maybe he even was a little sick, for the scripture says he fell sick because of his lust. If you are sick with mourning because of your lust, that is a devil's fountain. The devil is mourning because he doesn't get his way. The devil mourned when Jesus did not give in to his temptations. This is Anon's mourning. It's a fountain of hell. It's not a blessed fountain. Ahab's mourning is similar. You'll remember he didn't get Naboth's vineyard. Do you remember that? And what did he do? Like a big baby, he flops on his bed. Oh, I don't get my vineyard. He's a king. He had all of the Northern Israel land, but he couldn't have Naboth's little vineyard. And he's crying about it. This is a mourning, which is not blessed. Perhaps the scariest of them all. morning Judas not only knew he sinned against his master but he knew he must give some type of restitution and so he took this the blood money he took the silver and he comes back to the chief priest and he says take this back this is this is I got this unjustly But this is a mourning which he had, which was to despair. For what did he do after that? Do you remember, Church? He was in such despair, he went and he put a noose around his neck, he tied it to a tree, and he hung himself until he was dead. And I imagine that Branch broke underneath his weight, his dead weight. He went down, he hung himself on a tree like over a cliff. His body went down and he was destroyed on the rocks, his entrails coming out. The Bible says, showing you the depths of the despair, which if you have no hope in God, it leads you to. This is not a blessed morning. This is a morning which is akin to the damned. The damned souls in hell, they mourn. We saw this in the rich man, who in Luke 16, his eyes lifted up in hell and torment. And he was so much in a state of mourning that he said, Father Abraham, if you could just have Lazarus dip his finger in water, I would be relieved. His mourning was so great. of all the things he would ask for, repentance, grace. The only thing he wants is just a drop of water. This mourning of the damned in hell continues this day, and there is no blessedness for it. There is no happiness ever to be attained by them. And so what is it that Jesus is talking about? If it's not any of this, what is the fountain of happiness? I want to tell you about it. I want to tell you about the Christians fountain. The morning that will get you happiness here today. Church is a very distinct. And so let me describe it to you. It's a fountain that comes from the eyes. I want to be careful. because I do realize that tears in and of itself does not necessarily mean that there's a blessed morning. Tears in and of itself is not meritorious. Indeed, there's many people constituted who can mourn deeply in their soul, but their eyes may remain dry. But that's a minority. The majority of people, when they are touched to the very deep dregs of their soul, there is tears. And so I'm gonna speak generally here of that picture, children. happy fountain promised here by Jesus Christ himself. There's certain objects that it's placed upon. I want you to think about a fountain, children. You see fountains out, they emit their water and then they emit it down into a vessel which it holds this water. It falls on something, the water falls on something, whether it's coming out and trickling down the side or it's spewed out into heaven and comes back down. It has an object where the water lands, This case if we think about the eye as a fountain where the tears land Where are your tears landing today? When you are crying before the Lord in where you are mourning before the Lord, what is their object? What's bringing you to these tears such that the tears fall upon your Bible? Is it your Bible? A paper that you have in front of you, your bed, your closet, where you pray? What objects should... morning, this fountain of happiness. Ezekiel 20 verse 43 says, you shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for all your evils. Talking about the people of God. And so one of the objects of this fountain is to be your sins. If you could take a piece of paper, church, if you could write on that piece of paper with your pen all of your sins, it should be that which is the object of a blessed morning. The tears should fall out from your face onto this list, the list of your mind as you think upon them. This is blessed morning. Blessed morning is not only our own sins, but it's also the sins of others. This of course needs to be controlled. The Lord Jesus said, do not take the moat, don't take the little speck out of someone else's eye when you have a big plank in your own. And so the primary thing must be your own sin. But once you have mourned over your own sin, it's proper that you would mourn over the sins of others. Those you love, your family who have not come to Christ, they should cause tears in your eyes. but also the objects should be generational sins as well. Perhaps you're learning about your family tree. Perhaps you can see the effects of sin that started with your grandfather. and they were reproduced in your father. And you even have fallen prey to the same temptations. It's on your list, Christian, isn't it? It's one of those sins that you've fallen into. Well, repent of the sins of your fathers and your own sins. And the Lord said, he will be gracious unto thee. He will come unto you and he will say, that sin, it has indeed transpired to the second and the third generation. But I'm coming now to you with grace and I'm telling you, Let's stop this here. Let's stop this generational sin here in you. Your soul is mourning for it and now will grant the blessedness. You can now be happy that I will affect in you a growth where the generational sin stops here. But there's also the sin we saw in Sabbath school of national sin, a national sin in the times of Saul, which affected the times of David in the sin against the Gibeonites. This is something that ought to be lamented over. Let me tell you this, Christian, if you will not mourn over your national sins, the Lord Jesus Christ will send pestilence. He will send reasons for you to lament until you lament of national sins. And so don't look at this COVID-19 and the big spike, I've looked at the numbers even this morning, there's a second wave, a huge spike of this pestilence. Let us not forget that this is because of our personal sins. This is because of our generational sins. This is because of our national sins. You wanna be happy, you wanna be free from these pestilences, you must start here, what our Lord Jesus has said, blessed are they that mourn. Mourn, there's a fountain of happiness in your eyes, Christian, but you must take the time. You must be. in the soul for your own sins. There's a nature of this fountain. This fountain of happiness is constant. Psalm 51.3 says, my sin is ever before me. First Corinthians 15.31 says, the inspired apostle says, I die daily. Are you dying as you're thinking about your sin? Is there a part of you deep down that's dead? You know that your sin is tearing up your life. It may be secret. People may not see it. It hasn't come to bear yet, but it is heavy upon you. Is that you? There's blessedness for you. There's happiness for you. If you're allowing it to be in a secret place, if it's there and you are not mourning, if you're not crying over your sin, if it's not constantly before you, if you're tired of hearing about your sin, I warn you, I warn you, you're not going to be a happy person. Other Christians will see it. They'll say that Christian is not a happy person. There's a certain bitterness that is in you. There's a certain root of bitterness that gives all kinds of nasty fruits of envy and destruction. This is why the Lord Jesus will teach his disciples in just one more chapter to say, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. We are to have before us every day, every prayer, our sins. Is this you Christian? Is this you? This is the nature of the fountain of happiness in your life. There's another aspect of this, it's spiritual. I hope you saw that in the description of what it is not. It is not all of these things which are mere physicalities. But there is a spiritual element to it. The nature of this mourning is that you look into your soul and you're mourning in your soul. That's why tears aren't absolutely necessary. Because it's really the mourning that's inside, the heaviness that's heavy upon yourself. This grief, is it aimed at heaven? Do you realize that you are in a front, in rebellion against God? Do you realize of the holiness of God? God is holy. He cannot be in the presence of sin. And He has saved your soul, Christian. He loved you so much, He sent His only begotten Son to shed His blood for you. That's how valuable you were, and yet you stumble You stamp upon the Lord Jesus Christ and his blood. Look at your shoes today. There's blood upon your shoes because you're stamping my Savior. Get off my Savior and stop your sin and mourn for it. He's a holy God. Wake up, church. We're sinners in the hands of an angry God. The nature of this fountain, the reason why there's happiness as a result of this morning is because it has cleansing powers. It has cleansing powers, I'm not talking about the tears. I'm talking about the spiritual element, the spiritual nature of it. When you realize who God is, when you realize who you are, you can do nothing but realize, Lord Jesus, I need thee, I need you, please come, come into my life. If you are hearing this for the first time, you remember. this life without Christ. You remember this life without this truth of a God that loves, that a God who sends his only begotten son, a God that gives blood for cleansing. You see, this mourning has not only the act of recognizing sin, but an act of taking of the blood. I said your feet are bloody because of your sin, but your hands must be bloody too as you take the bloody Savior and you apply Him to your own life. You ought to be bloody and have the face of bloodiness upon your face as you take and apply the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus Christ. That's what the tears are for. That's what it brings you down to. And once you come forth and you go to look into the mirror and you think you're gonna be a bloody mess filled with the awful sight of your sins. You look and what was once bloody is now made clean and white. The Bible says you're given white robes. You're cleansed. You're purified. It's a wonderful story that you look into the mirror and you don't see your sins anymore. God looks upon you. He doesn't see your sin anymore. He sees Jesus. He sees the righteousness of Jesus Christ. It's an amazing thing. These tears, they draw Jesus to you because you see how much you need him and you take a hold of him and his righteousness and all that he is offered to be for you in the covenant of grace. You see this grace, this gift, you don't deserve it. These tears are not meritorious. They're indeed treasured up into a bottle. God looks at your tears and he has them in his bottle. He knows every single one that you have expended for him. they're precious to him, but they're not meritorious. These aren't to be poured out as some type of sacrifice. These tears are wonderful to him because what he sees as it sits upon his shelf, so to say, is he sees, look at what my son has done. My son has died for a people and these people love him. These people love Him. They are His inheritance. These people are magnifying Him. They are lifting Him up as the only name given among men by which they may be saved. Do you realize that today? Sinner, do you realize that Jesus is the only way? That there is no other way? You can't go through Buddha. You can't go through philosophy. You can't go through any other way than the blood of Jesus Christ. That is the source and the energy of this fountain of happiness as it shoots up towards heaven. So you ought to be as well. I love that this is not merely Jesus doesn't merely leave us with this blessed are they that mourn. He gives us more reasons to come to Jesus Christ. And here it is in the second part of this verse, for they shall be comforted. Do you wanna be comforted today? This is the effects of this fountain. I'm still describing it to you children. These are the effects of the fountain. It's kinda like when you go into a fountain, When you go into water, you can be bathed. This is what happened to Naaman. Elisha told him, dip seven times in the Jordan, and thou shalt be cleansed. So the Lord Jesus Christ says, you mourn for Christ and embrace him as your own. You will be cleansed. You'll be comforted. You'll be comforted. What does this mean? This comfort is described in the scriptures in many ways, and it comes to the Christian in many ways. I wanna, speak about it to you today in regard to what it means on earth and what it means in heaven and what it can mean on earth as heaven meets earth. I'll explain these things. The first thing, the comforts here expressed by Christ, we see elsewhere in the scriptures as that which is comforts in earth. There's true comforts that will come to you on earth. If you're a mourning person, one that sees your sin and the sin of others, you're one which is humble. You're one which is contrite and broken hearted. And God is pleased to take the discomforts. away from you so that they won't overtake you. Listen to it from the scriptures, 1 Corinthians 10, 13. God is faithful and will suffer you to be tempted. He will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able to bear. And we see example of this in 2 Samuel 7, 14. If they did sin, the context here, of course, is the covenant with David and his progeny, his seed. If they did sin, He would correct them with the rod of men, but not take His mercy quite from them. There'll be a punishment. There's the great guilt and the consequences of sin. But that part of the comfort in this earth is that God never allows His mercy to be gone from a situation. He still will redeem even that which is temporal on this earth. But there's also the grief of sin, and that is promised to be removed as well. We see it in Second Chronicles. I love the historic books. It shows us so much of the realities of these principles, which the Lord Jesus is expounding. Second Chronicles, I'll read it for you from Chapter 33. It says this in 11 to 13. Wherefore, the Lord brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh among the thorns and bound him with fetters and carried him to Babylon. That wicked king Manasseh, he totally abandoned the worship of Jehovah, set up false gods, breaking first and second commandment. Very wicked king, more wicked than any other. But listen to what God does in verse 12 and 13. And when he was in affliction, Manasseh besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed unto him. and he was entreated of him and heard his supplication, God was. And he brought Manasseh again to Jerusalem into his kingdom that Manasseh knew that the Lord, he was God. Do you see? He didn't allow Manasseh as would have been just. God could have left Manasseh to his sins and the consequences of his sin, death in Babylon, but he didn't. its mercy was still there, even in the temporal things in earth, he allowed him to have his kingdom back. And even because he humbled himself, had the destruction of Judah wait another generation or two. Amazing of God's kindness towards us. There's also comforts of heaven in earth as well. This is those inward comforts that the Bible talks about. Romans 5 3 says we rejoice in afflictions, knowing that the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which has given us. That's an internal comfort, a comfort that can only be described by the Holy Ghost acting upon the soul. Christ comforts as well. 2 Corinthians 1 says, in verses 4 to 5, as the sufferings of Christ abounded toward him, so his consolations, children, just another word for comforts, so his comforts through Christ abundant in him. This is the comforts of the Christian, where heaven meets earth in the soul. In the soul, there's an inward peace that surpasses all understanding. It is that which is available to you today. But I also want to make sure you remember the comforts of heaven as well, where you will see God face to face. You will remember that evil rich man in hell. He lifted up his eyes in torment. He sees. Lazarus, in heaven, in Abraham's bosom, and he's comforted. He who lived on this earth, you might remember the story, he who lived on this earth as a leper, who was begging at the gates, who was poor and always, from birth to death, a man in torment on this earth. In heaven, he was in comfort. You remember the thief upon the cross, the comforts that he heard at the ninth hour when he was about to die. Wow, what did Jesus tell him? He'd been a robber all his life, do you remember? And he even, at his very last breaths that he had, he only had a few breaths left, and some of the beginning ones was to tell Jesus, who are you? To disclaim his claim as Messiah. But Jesus, after this one out of the two humbled himself before Christ and said, I will take what you're offering. I see now that you're Messiah. I see now you are King of the Jews. I see now that your blood is being poured out for me. Jesus said, this day thou shall be with me in paradise. This day. an amazing comfort on earth and to come into heaven. This is a comfort you can have, and you will have, Christian. Christian, if you're embracing Christ today, this is your comfort. This is what Jesus was talking about, that comfort where your sins, which you know you have, God will save you from so many of those consequences as you humble yourself before him. But also, he will give you an internal comfort now He'll give you the promise of a future comfort as well. It's all yours, Christian. But unbeliever, sinner without Christ, you will not have this comfort. You don't have this comfort. If you're in your sins today and you have not repented of them, you've not turned away from your sin as a master, if you are still enslaved to your sin, this is not a comfort for you. This comfort is one you need to obtain. And the way to obtain it is by mourning. That you may be happy and blessed. You must mourn for your sins and hate your sins. Sorrow after your sins. And take Jesus Christ, the answer and the source of your happiness and your comfort. Take him today. He's offered to you in this gospel. It's a glorious thing. It's so easy, isn't it? You just gotta receive him. He's being offered. You just gotta take him in like a gift. Will you take him? Please do it, for Christ is glorious. And there's a certain pathway to happiness. And my second point, children, is to give you a drawing, a drawing of a map to this fountain. Yes, children, I was thinking about you especially for this point, and if you want, you can take a page and you can draw a map if you want. You can draw a map. Congregation, what I'm hoping to do is in order to get to that comfort, you have to come through the word of God and hear what it's saying and receive it for yourself. And I wanted to try to draw this out for the children in a picture. And so bear with me as we attempt this and bring scriptures to bear upon this. I'm hoping that in my, Description of this fountain, you desire it. Do you desire this fountain of happiness? If you wanna find it, I wanna give you a map to find it. And so here is the map. Children, you can draw a forest. It's a forest of the closet. In this forest, there's an orchard. In this orchard, where you pray. You must pray. Psalm 119 verse 18 says, Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold the wondrous things out of thy law. We must come in prayer to God, asking to understand his scriptures. There's no other way to mourn but to see what he has said in his law. Are you a prayer today? You must go through the forest of the closet. You must go and lift up your prayers to Jehovah. The comforts of the spirit are humbling. You must come and must place your arms upon this rock and you must open them up and say, I wanna receive from you, oh God. You must take from him. You must ask God to come. I tell you to beware. I tell you to beware, because sometimes this is what happens to Christians. You see, comfort is taken away. You're a Christian here today, perhaps, but you don't feel comforted. You don't feel deep down inside that there's peace in your soul, but you know you've received Christ. You remember that day when you said, that blood is my blood, that death is my death, that resurrection is my resurrection to walk in. You remember that day, but you don't feel that peace. That assurance is not there. I will tell you this, sometimes God sees fit to withhold his comforts in order that we may see the greater value of grace. You see, our natures are prone to love comfort more than grace. I was reading a Puritan, I think it was Owen, I can't remember. If it was Owen, it might have been in his mortification. of sin, he said, we as Christians sometimes go too quickly to the cross. And this is what he meant by that. We use as a means to get comfort from our sinning. We so often say, okay, I'm Christ. I got to get out of jail free card. You see, What we really need to do is spend more time mourning that we may get that comfort. You see, Jesus did not say, blessed are they that assure themselves that they are comforted. He doesn't say that. We need to make sure that we go to the cross through the route of mourning, because this is what Jesus said. This is what the Bible's saying. Blessed are they that mourn. Are you mourning in the closet, in the forest of the closet? Children, after you go through the forest of the closet, you come to a meadow, a moor, it's like a big grassland. And this is the meadow of the word. This is where our forefathers would meet and hear the word of God. They call them conventicles. Conventicles because they were not authorized by the state. The state was suppressing them and saying, you can only go in the church gatherings, in the official church gatherings. You can't hear the word anywhere else. And so our covenanters would go into the meadow, into the moors, into the conventicles. Listen to this. After you have gone into the prayer closet, you must engage with this word. This word is the source. This is by which you come to see and know who Jesus is. Jesus will not, in this day, gone are the days where he will appear like he did to Saul of Tarsus. Are you touching the Word of God? Have you come to the meadow of the Word? John 16, 7 and 8 says, And when He has come, Jesus is talking about the Spirit. And when He has come, He will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. When the Spirit of God comes, He's going to work through the Word of God to convince you of your sins. Are you listening to the Spirit today? Hebrews 4.2 says, for unto us was the gospel preached as well as unto them, but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. Do you have faith today? You must go into this meadow of the word and receive it by faith. If you read this word, children, it's nothing to you without faith. It's vain to you without faith. You must pray in that forest. to have faith when you read this word. This is the great condition to benefiting from the Word of God. You must not only receive this Word with faith, you must receive it with love. 2 Thessalonians 2.10 says, And with all deceitfulness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they receive, why are they perishing? Because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. Are you receiving what's being said here? Blessed are they that mourn with love. and faith, and meekness, James 121, and readiness of mind. Acts 17, 11 says, these were more noble than those in Thessalonica in that they received the word with all readiness of mind. Do you prepare your mind to come here today? You should be preparing your mind to hear the word of God preached unto you. For without a readiness of mind, without meekness, without love, without faith, it can be unprofitable for you. This is why we have Christians that sit under the word of God week after week after week, and there's no profit for them. Christians are without comfort because they do not apply the promises of the word of God to themselves. The mourner's eyes can be so full of tears that he cannot see the promises. When the promises are applied by faith, they bring comfort. You gotta have faith milking the udders of the promise of God. Satan is so often behind this great deception. What he'll do is he'll either keep the promise from you, make sure you're in a church that doesn't preach this word or cares very little about it or doesn't raise it up high and says, thus saith the word of the Lord. Satan will either do that or if he can't keep the promises from you, he'll keep you from the promises. How hard was it to read your Bible this week, Christian? Every day, daily. You are letting Satan keep you from the promises if you're not in the Bible every day. We become weak. We become weak and we can't fight. The army has such a good program for supplying food to its troops because if they did not, they would be weak. Don't be a weak Christian, be in the word. Don't give in to Satan's deceptions to keep you from the promises. After we have, children, been through the forest of the closet, the meadow of the word, now we must descend, go down, walk downwards into the valley, the valley of decision. There, I want to tell you about what's in that valley. I lived in the valley once. I can tell you much about it. It was a fertile valley. There was a Y in this road, and there's a Y here as well. And this is why it's called the Valley of Decision. In this Y, there's two different ways to go. There's a field before you, and if you go to your left hand, there's hardened soil. If you go to your right hand, there is a cultivated field, well-cultivated children. I wanna tell you what I mean by this. There's two types of fields. I've seen them as I worked on a nursery once. where we would raise trees and orchard trees and bushes and landscaping things as well. There would be land which would be given over to weeds. It'd be hardened. And the rain was such that it would beat down and compact that soil. And that which was soft, the water would drive wedges and make the ground very dangerous to traverse. but that which was well cultivated. About every other week, we would have to go and our cultivator, we would have to loosen up that ground that would start to compact. And what this would do is this would loosen it up so that when water fell, it did not create the crevices and the valleys and the canyons, which would make it difficult to traverse and wash away plants, but instead it would take the water in and hold it in its fertile ground for the plants to live off of. There is this unending call in the Valley of Decision. And this is the same call that I give you today. You see it in the prophets. You see it in the prophet of Jeremiah. You see it in Hosea. Elder Shipman has brought us through not too long ago, and I wanted to read it for you because this is the call for you as you prepare this week for taking the Lord's Supper. You're in the valley of decision. You're at this why in the way. You can prepare, go to your right and prepare your ground, or you can go to the left and you can have a hard heart, but listen to the call of the prophet. For thus saith the Lord to the men of Judah in Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, that's that hardened ground, break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest my Fury, come forth like fire and burn that none can quench it because of the evil of your doings. Hosea 10, 12 says, sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy, break up your fallow ground for it is time to seek the Lord. It's time to seek the Lord. I'm telling you, this is the week. Break up your fallow ground if you go this week. If you go into this time of the celebration of the Lord's Supper, we have not had it for a long time, eight or nine months? Eight or nine months? Are you grieving for not taking the sacrament? Are you grieving for not partaking of the body and the blood of Jesus Christ, the one place where he said he will be there for you, to strengthen your faith? And what are you doing, are you mourning? Are you mourning for his providential eight months of not bringing this congregation and so many others too? So many churches just started taking them again. Don't harden your heart. Break up the foul ground. It's the hard heart that keeps Jesus from the soul. It's the hard heart that keeps a strengthening of faith from the Christian. circumcise your heart, cut off that outer hard shell, let the flesh be revealed, come to the table of the Lord that you may be strengthened in your faith. Be like answering Lady Wisdom which says in Luke 8, take heed therefore how ye hear Blessed is the man, says Lady Wisdom in Proverbs 8. Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the post of my doors. Is that who we are? Are we mourning? In this valley, we're down low, that we may see the hills down and around. Where I lived in the valley, there was one on each side of me, the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Appalachians, the most beautiful place I've ever lived. And I tell you, in this valley of decision, you must look up to a hill, to Golgotha. You must see the Lord Jesus with his pierced hands and know that you pierced him. You must look at his bloody brow and know that you were the mallet upon his brow that drove the thorns into his skull. You're sent and mourn. Blessed are they that mourn. this Lord's Supper that we're coming upon is a foreshadowing and a foretaste to the glories of the Feast of the Lamb. And so after you have moved, children, through the forest of prayer, the meadow of the Word, and descended into the valley of decision, you've taken the right way. You did it hard in your heart. You come to that farmer who was tilling that ground, the farmer who was seeing and sure that the The crops were well cared for. You come to a feast because there was fruit from the ground. So there is a reason for feasting. You come to the faithful farmer's village feast. Morning, you see, shall be turned into feasting with joy. This is our promise. This is our comfort. Revelation 19, 9 says, Blessed are they which are called into the marriage supper of the lamb. Christ will lead his spouse into the banqueting house and feast her with those celestial dainties. Christ will make a supper that is sweet to our palate. It's not bitter. To the very fullness of our satisfaction, he will meet all of our desires. Revelation 7, 16 says, they shall hunger no more. And this joy and this mirth and this feasting shall be forevermore. We will confer together about this feast. This Friday we will be talking in a spiritual discussion about this wonderful feast and that which it prefigures. Luke 9.44 says, let these sayings sink into your ears, for the Son of Man shall be delivered into the hands of men. Do you see that he was delivered for you? Luke 8.15 says, but that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, Keep it and bring forth fruit with patience. Is your life a life of fruit? Are you gonna prepare yourself for this supper this upcoming week? Are you gonna remind yourselves and have your sin ever before you this week, Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday? This sermon acts as a preparation for that. I've now come to reveal that this fountain of happiness Although indeed is the Lord Jesus Christ as we receive him in the gospel, there's certain ways he's given us to receive him and be benefited by his death. One of those is not only the word preached, but the sacraments, baptism in the Lord's supper and the Lord's supper to be done as frequently as possible. And here we have one upon us after a long famine. Put your sins before you. Prepare this week the more that you may be blessed. In 1521, Ponce de Leon returned once again to the Florida coast, sending correspondence to King Charles V and Pope Adrian VI that detailed his desire to settle the land. It was here that, after coming in contact with the natives and trying to enslave them like he did every other place, because he was a wicked man and his unhappiness was shown forth therewith, It was here that, providentially in a skirmish with the indigenous people of Florida, Ponce de Leon was shot in the thigh by an arrowhead. He died shortly after in Cuba. The wound became infected. Children. He died rich, but unhappy. He died a soul lost and not found. He died a soul in grief. for his sins. Christian, this week is your week of mourning. Sinners, perhaps you're not yet accepted to the table. Perhaps you do not see yet the need you have for Christ. I'm showing you here today that he is for you. He's offering himself right now. He's for you. Come to him. Be comforted in him. but it has to start with mourning. So look at your sin and you'll see how much you need him. That you may die not like Ponce de Dion, but that you may die happy. Let's pray. Father, I've given them your word. Now send your Holy Spirit. the effect in them mourning, a blessed mourning, a receiving of Jesus Christ, a preparation for the supper of the Lord, a coming to his table with joy and the expectation of joy which is promised from his death and his resurrection. We thank you that you are so gracious to us and that you have enabled us to renew the supper here after so long a time of famine. we love you father we pray that you will uphold us and keep us safe from this pestilence and you will bless us and continue to bless us this day as the word is worked into our heart and our soul we ask these things in christ's name amen in response to the word preached we'll be singing psalm 63a