Tears

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven...a time to weep and a time to laugh..." (Ecclesiastes 3: 1, 4 NIV)

There was no sorrow, nor weeping, nor tears in Eden's Garden, in Paradise, when Adam and Eve walked with God in pure innocence and perfect obedience. But alas! our parents rebelled against their Maker! They were condemned and cursed! Their seed too!

Now Adam and Eve, and all their children, outside of Eden, weep and experience pain, and misery, and manifold death, and separation from God and from what is good.

In Eden, prior to sin, there was no "time" nor "season" to weep, for all was peace and joy, but now, since the fall and rebellion of man, weeping has become the common destiny of sinful man.

"So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter. Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive." (Ecclesiastes 4: 1, 2 KJV)

Oh the many tears of fallen and cursed man! Oh his losses! His griefs! His wailings! His miseries! Have they all just sprung up by accident, "out of nowhere"? Do they not have a single cause? Is it hopeless to think man could ever live without weeping? without grief and loss? without death? How can one be saved eternally from this life of grief and woe?

"When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth: surely every man is vanity. Selah. Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear unto my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears: for I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were." (Psalm 39: 11, 12 KJV)

Is God still not rebuking and correcting man in his sin and rebellion? Is he still not punishing and dispensing divine justice upon wicked men and deeds? Is his curse and sentence of condemnation and death still not actively at work against the sins of man? What are the signs and evidences of it?

1) The beauty of man is "fading away"; both his outer and his inner beauty, both the beauty of his body and the spiritual beauty of his spirit before the Lord.
2) His vanity and grief.

Life, because of sin, has become hard and difficult, a time of "blood, sweat, and tears." How do we find peace, deliverance, and hope for the present and for the future?

"Even now," declares the LORD, "return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning." (Joel 2: 12 NIV)

All weeping is not virtuous nor genuine. People shed "crocodile tears," feigning empathy. But, Lord God knows whether we are pretending to be sorry for our sins. He cannot be fooled.

"Jesus turned and said to them, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children." (Luke 23: 28 NIV)

Oh how misguided are the tears of men! Oh how they weep for all the wrong things and for all the wrong reasons! For all the wrong people! And yet, salvation is only to be found in proper weeping, in mourning for the right reason, and for the right person, and in the right way, in deep contrition and remorse over sin before the Lord. This is how a sinner "returns" to the Lord, it is "with the heart" and "with tears" of genuine repentance, such that only God himself can give.

"Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh...Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep." (Luke 6: 21, 25 NIV)

"I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy." (John 16: 20 NIV)

"In that day," declares the Sovereign LORD, "I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. I will turn your religious feasts into mourning and all your singing into weeping. I will make all of you wear sackcloth and shave your heads. I will make that time like mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day." (Amos 8: 9, 10 NIV)

"Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you." (James 5: 1 NIV)

"For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning." (Psalm 30: 5 NIV)

"But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." (Matthew 8: 12 NIV)

"They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." (Matthew 13: 32 & vs. 50 NIV)

What do all these verses teach us about weeping, about misery and tears of grief and woe?

First, those who weep now in a godly and spiritual way, in what is called "conviction of sin," where one is "sorry for his sin" (Psalm 38: 18 KJV), and where one is made to detest his sins and his sinful self, and to be contrite and broken in heart before the Lord, to "smite upon the breast" and to cry out "God be merciful to me a sinner" (Luke 18: 13 KJV), and confess that Christ is their only hope of justification, there is both present joy and the promise that when Christ returns, and resurrects their dead bodies, that they will forever be freed from every tear, grief, and pain, knowing nothing but unending joy.

Second, on the other hand, those who refuse to weep now in repentance before the Lord, will see that their carnal and earthly joys are turned into eternal woe, when Christ returns and judges them. Such will be when all their feasts will all be no more, and they will be in that place where there is only weeping.

"Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!" (Jeremiah 9: 1 KJV)

"Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city." (Lamentations 2: 11 KJV)

Those who have come to find pardon with the Lord through Christ weep for (supplicate) their neighbors who do not have this pardon and this hope for the future. Therefore they weep in prayer to the Lord on their behalf. Oh that we had more Christians who will weep before the Lord for their lost neighbors!

"...Serving the LORD with all humility of mind, and with many tears, and temptations, which befell me...Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears." (Acts 26: 18, 19, 31 KJV)

"My friends scorn me: but mine eye poureth out tears unto God." (Job 16: 20 KJV)

The Christian is not exempt from loss, pain, and tears. In fact, they have losses, pains, and griefs that the lost sinner does not have or experience. The tears of the believer in Jesus are godly tears, because they are directed not towards man, but to God, and are beneficial for them in this life, for "it is better to go to the house of weeping than to the house of feasting" (Ecclesiastes 7:2-4 KJV).

"I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears. Mine eye is consumed because of grief; it waxeth old because of all mine enemies. Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity; for the LORD hath heard the voice of my weeping. The LORD hath heard my supplication; the LORD will receive my prayer." (Psalm 6: 6-9 KJV)

"Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?" (Psalm 56: 8 KJV)

The Christian "serves the Lord with tears" and such crying as the Psalmist described, but he is also comforted in knowing that God sees all his tears and preserves them so as never to be forgotten.

"And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment." (Luke 7: 38 KJV)

Here are some of those tears that are in God's "bottle"! The tears of the contrite Mary! That great sinner the Lord Jesus cleansed and pardoned! She weeps now for joy! She rejoices greatly in her spirit! She is sitting alone at the feet of the "King of the ages"! The "King of kings" and the "Lord of lords"!

"O LORD God of hosts, how long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy people? Thou feedest them with the bread of tears; and givest them tears to drink in great measure." (Psalm 80: 4, 5 KJV)

"They that sow in tears shall reap in joy." (Psalm 126: 5 KJV)

Yet, every tear is but temporary for the Christian, just as every joy is temporary for the one who has not repented of his sin nor found pardon in the work of Christ.

"Hear my prayer, O LORD, listen to my cry for help; be not deaf to my weeping. For I dwell with you as an alien, a stranger, as all my fathers were." (Psalm 39: 12 NIV)

"Away from me, all you who do evil, for the LORD has heard my weeping." (Psalm 6: 8 NIV)

If one prays and weeps earnestly in faith for God to see, recognize, and mercifully "take note of" his tears, then he will surely be heard.

"Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the LORD hath dealt bountifully with thee. For thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling." (Psalm 116: 7,8 KJV)

Salvation from tears! How?

"Then one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals." (Revelation 5: 5 NIV)

Through Jesus and his work of redemption on the cross!

"Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears." (Hebrews 12: 16, 17 KJV)

Weep for yourselves, said Jesus and said James! And, weep before it is too late, as in the case of Esau!

"He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it." (Isaiah 25: 8 KJV)

"For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." (Revelation 7: 17 KJV)

"And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." (Revelation 21: 4 KJV)

Glorious promises of a tearless eternity of joy! Will you share in it?