Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 643
Delivered on Sunday Morning, August 6, 1865
“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.” Revelation 7:17.
IT is an ill thing to be always mourning, sighing and complaining concerning the present. However dark it may be, we may surely recall some fond remembrances of the past. There were days of brightness, there were seasons of refreshing from the Presence of the Lord. Be not slow to confess, O believing Soul, that the Lord has been your help! And though now your burden is very heavy, you will find an addition to your strength in the thought of seasons long since past when the Lord lightened your load and made your heart leap for joy.
Yet more delightful will it be to expect the future. The night is dark, but the morning comes. Over the hills of darkness the day breaks. It may be that the road is rough but its end is almost in view. You have been clambering up the steep heights of Pisgah and from its brow you may view your glorious heritage. True, the tomb is before you, but your Lord has snatched the sting from death, and the victory from the grave. Do not, O burdened Spirit, confine yourself to the narrow miseries of the present hour, but let your eyes gaze with fondness upon the enjoyment of the past and view with equal ardor the infinite blessings of old eternity when you were not, but when God set you apart for Himself and wrote your name in His Book of Life!
Let your glance flash forward to the future eternity, the mercies which shall be yours even here on earth and the glories which are stored up for you beyond the skies. I shall be well rewarded this morning if I shall minister comfort to one heavy spirit by leading it to remember the Glory which is yet to be revealed.
Coming to our text, we shall observe, in the first place, that as God is to wipe away tears from the faces of the glorified, we may well infer that their eyes will be filled with tears till then. And in the second place, it is worthy of reflection that as God never changes, even now He is engaged in drying tears from His children’s eyes. And then, coming right into the heart of the text we shall dwell upon the great Truth of God, that in Heaven Divine Love removes all tears from the glorified. And so we shall close by making some inquiry as to whether or not we belong to that happy company.
I. Our first subject of meditation is the inference that TEARS ARE TO FILL THE EYES OF BELIEVERS UNTIL THEY ENTER THE PROMISED REST. There would be no need to wipe them away if there were none. They come to the very gates of Heaven weeping and accompanied by their two comrades, Sorrow and Sighing. The tears are dried and Sorrow and Sighing flee away. The weeping willow grows not by the river of the Water of Life, but it is plentiful enough below. Nor shall we lose it till we change it for the palm branch of victory. Sorrow’s dewdrop will never cease to fall until it is transformed into the pearl of everlasting bliss—
“The path of sorrow and that path alone, Leads to the place where sorrow is unknown.”
Religion brings deliverance from the curse, but not exemption from trial. The ancients were accustomed to use bottles in which to catch the tears of mourners. I think I see three bottles filled with the tears of Believers. The first is a common bottle, the ordinary lachrymatory containing griefs incidental to all men, for Believers suffer even as the rest of the race. Physical pain by no means spares the servants of God. Their nerves, blood vessels, limbs and inward organs are as susceptible to disease as those of unregenerate men. Some of the choicest saints have lain longest on beds of sickness and those who are dearest to the heart of God have felt the heaviest blows of the chastening rod.
There are pains which, despite the efforts of patience, compel the tears to wet the cheeks. The human frame is capable of a fearful degree of agony and few there are who have not at some time or other watered their couch with tears because of the acuteness of their pains. Coupled with this are the losses and crosses of daily life. What Christian among you trades without occasional difficulties and serious losses? Have any of you a lot so easy that you have nothing to deplore? Are there no crosses at home? Are there no troubles abroad?
Can you travel from the first of January to the last of December without feeling the weariness of the way? Have you no blighted field, no bad debt, no slandered name, no harsh word, no sick child, no suffering wife to bring before the Lord in weeping prayer? You must be an inhabitant of another planet if you have had no griefs, for man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards! No ship can navigate the Atlantic of earth without meeting with storms—it is only upon the Pacific of Heaven that all is calm forevermore.
Believers must, through much tribulation, inherit the kingdom of Heaven. “Trials must and will befall.” Death contributes to our woes. The heirs of immortality are often summoned to gather around the tomb. Who has not lost a friend? If Jesus wept, expect not that we shall be without the tears of bereavement. The well-beloved Lazarus died and so will our choicest friends. Parents will go before us. Infants will be snatched from us. Brothers and sisters will fall before the scythe of Death. Impartial foe of all, you spare neither virtue nor vice, holiness nor sin—with equal foot you tread on the cherished loves of all!