Right now, the entire southeast United States is experiencing an extreme drought with places like north Georgia having been without any rain at all for almost three months. I live in North Carolina where we are seeing forest fires in the western part of the state. I have lived in or near western North Carolina for more than 50 years and have never heard about a single forest fire until this year. For reasons that I will explain in this series of blogs, I believe that the drought is a judgment from God because of the sins and disobedience of this nation, and I want to urge all believers to pray and ask the Lord to be merciful and to send rain on the parched ground of the south.

So before I begin this study on drought and on how to pray for rain, I appeal to all my brothers and sisters in Christ, and especially those in the southeast United States, to pray using 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 that the Lord would hear from heaven, would forgive our sin and would send rain on our land.

How Adam’s sin has affected the earth and has given us drought – The Fall

In the Garden of Eden, the LORD God provided everything that Adam and Eve needed to flourish. Everything was given in abundance and there was no lack of anything. This was a consequence of what may be called “the Adamic covenant” or “the Adamic probation.” God had promised the first man Adam that He would provide everything he needed, but this promised provision was conditioned on Adam’s obedience. When man rebelled and sinned against the LORD God by eating the forbidden fruit, the arrangement between God and man changed. Instead of providing all that the man needed, the earth was cursed (Genesis 3:17-19) and, from that point on, anything that man received from the earth was solely the result of God’s gracious provision. In fact, from the point of the Fall onward, the earth became a means of expressing the LORD God’s favor or, more evidently, God’s judgment. In this present study, we will see that God will withhold rain from the earth as an expression of His judgment on a people or on a nation. The point is that, because of his sin, man has forfeited God’s initial covenant and thus has no legitimate claim on any of God’s blessings which were promised to him in the beginning. After the Fall, all mankind in all places on the face of the earth is dependent on God’s grace for whatever blessings He gives.

The implication of this brief look at this aspect of redemptive history is that God is perfectly justified in withholding His rain from a geographic region when the people’s sin and rebellion has exceeded God’s grace. What we will see in this study is that there are several places in the Old Testament (in the Law, in the history of Israel and in the prophets) where the LORD warns that He will withhold His rain from disobedient Israel, and there is nothing in the contexts of these Old Testament warnings that would suggest they have been abrogated.

To sum up, here is what we have learned from this study so far.

• In Adam’s sin, man has forfeited his right to God’s blessings as a promise and now receives those blessings solely as a result of God’s grace. Thus rain is now a result of God’s common grace.
• In the Old Testament, the LORD warned that He would shut up the heavens and send no rain if the people did not obey Him and did not observe the LORD’s commandments and statutes (references verses will be given later)
• There is nothing in the context of these Old Testament warnings that would indicate they are no longer in effect today, so we can assume that God’s threatening about withholding rain as judgment for sin still holds.
• MY CONCLUSION is that our sin and rebellion in the USA has exceeded the LORD’s patience extended to us in His common grace and, as a result, God is judging us by withholding rain. Our disobedience has led to drought

The next blog will discuss the Scriptures which support the statements that I have made in this blog and will cover many of the verses which present the instances when God warned of the consequences of disobedience or tell of His withholding rain.

There will also be a blog on how to pray for rain biblically so that the LORD will hear our prayers, including how to prepare our heart as we present our requests to God.

In the meantime . . .

“If I, the LORD, shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, and My people, who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” 2 Chron. 7:13-14

SDG      rmb      11/23/2016

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. (Matthew 5:4)”

So far, we have explored two ways of considering this verse to understand mourning. First we considered the mourning over sin that begins the new life in Christ, acknowledging that this is certainly the primary understanding of this passage. Second, we considered the mourning that sometimes comes to the believer as they encounter the pervasive evil of this world. While we are called to persevere and even to overcome the wickedness and the evil of this world (Romans 12:21), there are times when we mourn this burden and lament the ravages of sin (Mark 9:19) that have so stained the world.

Now I want to briefly consider a third type of mourning, which is the mourning that comes to believers as they encounter the physical death of those whom they love. I say “consider” for this feeling of sorrow at the death of a loved one is a profound part of human experience, but I say “briefly” for the believer should respond to life’s sorrows differently than those who are of the world. In fact, if we are far along the path of sanctification, we may even think that there should be only celebration: another saint has entered heaven and has won the victory that Christ purchased for them. In his direct and challenging style, J C Ryle urges believers to see the death of a believing loved one in this way:

“Are you one who is mourning over a departed believer? Then take comfort from this Scripture (Luke 23:39-43 the thief on the cross with Jesus). See how your beloved ones are in the best of hands. They cannot be better off. They never were so well in their lives as they are now. They are with Jesus, whom their souls loved on earth. Oh, cease from your selfish mourning! Rejoice rather that they are freed from trouble and have entered into rest.”       “Christ’s Greatest Trophy” in Holiness by J C Ryle

But we also see in the Bible that God in His word acknowledges the feelings of sorrow and the subsequent mourning that come to humans, even believing humans, when they encounter death. Thus the healthy response is to balance mourning with the trust and joy that are appropriate to believers when death is encountered.

What does the Bible have to say about this mourning? First, it is important to remember that Jesus Christ Himself wept at Lazarus’ tomb (John 11:35). This is profound, for in this act of sorrow and mourning, Jesus sanctioned mourning. If the Son of God wept at the event of a person’s death, then it is okay if we mourn at the death of one of our loved ones. I do not know the full meaning of Jesus’ tears, but I do know that He wept, and that is good enough.

Next, it is also significant that Jesus gave His apostles instructions about what to do when He died in Jerusalem (John 16:6, 20, 22) and His instructions included their sorrow over His death. At no time does Jesus correct or rebuke this sorrow, again indicating that it is good and right to mourn and lament the loss of a loved one.

In at least two places Paul makes clear that sorrow and mourning are appropriate and normal for all people, even believers, when they encounter death. In 1 Thessalonians 4:13, the apostle says that believers will grieve when their friends have “fallen asleep,” but that they should do so as people who have a sure hope. Grieving while believing is the pattern for followers of Christ. In Philippians 2:27, Paul praises God that He spared Epaphroditus from dying and thus delivered Paul from “sorrow upon sorrow.” Paul would certainly have mourned if his good friend and co-laborer in the gospel, Epaphroditus, had died of his sickness, but God was merciful and spared the man for ongoing gospel service.

Finally few believers are sanctified to the point of having no fear of death and of having no doubts about heaven and hell, but the Bible allows for disciples who still need to grow. In other words, God is gracious and compassionate toward those who have trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ, even if there are still lapses in their trust. So the Bible allows the believer to be human and express their mourning in appropriate ways, but the Bible also insists that we grasp tightly to the promises of God and continue to trust the Lord with all our heart and might.

What we have seen is that, by balancing the two responses of mourning and of gripping to God’s promises, we can develop a healthy theology of mourning. In those life events when our humanity demands an expression of mourning and a lamenting of a loss, we can weep as the Lord wept (John 11:35; Romans 12:15) and pour out our pain before the Lord. We know, however, that we can only mourn briefly and we can only stay at the place of sorrow for a short time, for if we stay there too long, we run the risk of acting in unbelief. Because of the truth of the empty tomb and because of our trust in the promises of God, our mourning must turn quickly to joy. So our humanity mourns the separation from the one who has fallen asleep in Christ, but our spirit then shouts the victory cry: death has lost its sting, Christ has defeated death, and soon Christ will throw death and Hades into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:14).

For the believer, then, we can see that “blessed are those who mourn, for they will be satisfied.”                        SDG                 rmb                 11/20/2016

In the Sermon on the Mount, our Lord is teaching about the kingdom of God and is describing the characteristics of the citizen of the Kingdom. After saying that the blessed person is poor in spirit, Jesus declares, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. (Matthew 5:4)” I want to take some time to consider this topic of mourning and understand what Jesus is teaching us. We will see that there is great blessing concealed in mourning.

In Part 1 of this study we discovered that the primary point that Jesus is making in Matthew 5:4 is that those who mourn deeply over their sin and who repent of their sins and trust in Christ for forgiveness and salvation will be comforted. Their mourning over sin will be replaced with the joy of salvation. That is certainly the main teaching of this verse. But while this is the “Mount Everest” of this verse, I believe there are a couple of “sand dunes” of application related to mourning which can also be useful to the believer.

In these last days of the last days, I find myself deeply troubled by the rampant escalation of evil in this world. Through every available medium, man’s wickedness, cruelty and blatant immorality are constantly on display and I am affected by this. God’s holiness and His commandments are despised and ignored and man hurtles like a runaway train toward God’s judgment.

The pain created by the escalation of evil causes me to mourn. I mourn the fallenness of man and the sadness of this life and I lament how irreversibly we have strayed from God’s paths of righteousness and peace and I can become so discouraged.

But I believe that God has spoken into this type of mourning also and that there is a path from the place of mourning and lamentation that leads into the place of God’s comfort.

God has provided us with His Word and there in His Word I can find solace. I read in the psalms of other believers who experienced similar mourning over the evil and wickedness in the world and sharing these lamentations with others brings comfort. Also, as I read of others who cried out to the Lord in the midst of their mourning, I can likewise cry out to the Lord, for God’s Word has sanctioned my lamentations. If life was difficult for them, then it is okay if it is difficult to me.

It is also obvious from the pages of Scripture that the Lord Jesus Christ was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:3). As Jesus walked through this sinful world, there is no doubt that He was burdened by the sin of the people around Him. Jesus mourned the evil in the world and yet still kept His eyes fixed on the cross (Hebrews 12:2). Thus He left me an example to follow in His steps (1 Peter 2:21). He demonstrated that life in this fallen world is about striving against sin (Hebrews 12:4). With Jesus as my perfect example of striving against sin, I can imperfectly strive while mourning the evil remaining within me and the evil I see and feel in the world around me.

Finally, even though this mourning is a burden and can sometimes drain me of joy and encouragement, I know that my mourning is temporary. Even if it should last for all of my lifetime, I am convinced that one day the mourning will cease and I will arrive in heaven. One day the Lord will wipe away every tear from my eye (Revelation 21:4) and will eliminate all wickedness and evil and sin and will take me to the house of the Lord. Because of Jesus and His death and resurrection, I am persuaded that heaven is my destination. Therefore, blessed are those who mourn in the Lord, for they will be comforted.      SDG    rmb      11/19/2016