A distillation of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones 'Studies on the Sermon on the Mount'. All credit to him. One of the finest preachers and theologian minds of the modern age.

The world regards this as utterly ridiculous! "Forget your troubles" it says. But the meaning is entirely spiritual. He is happy who mourns in spirit.

Absence of this in the Church is one reason why it is failing to evangelize. As Christians more closely approximate the Beatitudes, they are more sucesful in drawing others in. But not false piety. To be religious is not to be miserable!

But we will not attract other to the faith through forced brightness and joviality. We fail to see the true depth of sin AND fail to understand true Christian joy. A double failure!

That results in a superficial kind of person and a very inadequate Christian life.

We have to be poor in spirit before we can be filled with the Holy Spirit. Conviction must precede conversion. A real sense of sin must come before there can be a true joy of salvation. That is the essense of the Gospel.

"Blessed are they that mourn".

People want joy without the conviction of sin. But that is impossible. It can never be obtained.

Why is there no record of Jesus ever having laughed?
He was a 'man of sorrows, aquainted with grief' - but why?

As I confront God and His holiness, and contemplate the life that I am meant to live, I see myself, my utter helplessness and hopelessness. I discover my quality of spirit and immediately that makes me mourn.

Mourning is our reflection upon this wretchedness. Our state of sinfulness. We must ask ourselves 'what is it in me that makes me behave like that. Why am I not able to control myself'. We should hate it.

But we should also mourn the sins of others.

Mourn the state of society and the world. Know that it is all due to sin.

THAT is why our Lord Jesus mourned. Why he was a man of sorrows. It is impossible to be merry, to laugh, in the face of knowing ALL THAT SIN, the sin that he took upon himself on the Cross.

But for our mourning, we are comforted, by Christ's salvation, and the happiness and contentment that that brings. And the hope that lies in the new Kingdom, and Christ's return.

A distillation of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones 'Studies on the Sermon on the Mount'. All credit to him. One of the finest preachers and theologian minds of the modern age.

The first, and the key to all that follows. It is an emptying. All others are a filling. The beatitudes are in a specific order for a specific reason. Pour out the old wine, before filling with the new.

There is no more perfect statement of the doctrine of faith alone. It at once condemns every idea of the Sermon on the Mount which thinks in terms of something you and I can do ourselves.

It is emphatically NOT 'Blessed in spirit are the poor'.

It IS 'not possessed by the worldly spirit'. It IS a poverty of spirit. Man's attitude towards himself. Genuinely putting God first, and pride second.

This is despised by the world. Self reliance, self confidence and self expression. The hubris of mankind!

Neither is this Beatitude popular in the Church today. Even in the Church today there is this foolish talk about 'personality'. And personality something purely fleshy and carnal, and a matter of physical appearance. Humility is assumed as lacking in personality!

But Paul in Corinth went in weakness, fear and trembling. People said he looked weak and his speech, contemptible.

But being poor in spirit does not mean retiring, weak or lacking in courage. It does not mean putting on false humility. Our personality must be true

True humility in the presence of God runs throughout the OT. Having had a vision, Isaiah said 'I am a man of unclean lips'. Paul in the NT was well aware of his own nature, his pride. That is why he uses the word 'boasting' so much.

That, then is what is meant by being 'poor in spirit'. It means a complete absence of pride, self-assurance and self-reliance. A consciousness that we are NOTHING in the presence of God.

The life we have lived or are trying to live, who we are, means nothing.