Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3049
“Going and weeping.” Jeremiah 50:4.
POSSIBLY someone says, on hearing my text, “I like better to be going and singing.” Yes, my Friend, and I do not blame you for making such a choice. As long as you can go and sing in the name of the Lord, let nothing stop you from doing so. It is meet that we who have been redeemed by Christ from destruction and are heirs of Heaven, should make merry and be glad. We should “rejoice in the Lord always,” yet we must not despise others if they should seem to give more prominence to another phase of spiritual experience, namely, “going and weeping,” for there are sons of sorrow on earth who will undoubtedly be sons of joy in Heaven. Among the sweetest flowers that bloom in the Savior’s garden are those that, like the snowdrops and the lilies of the valley, hang down their heads.
It is also possible to be going and singing and yet, at the same time, to be going and weeping, for the mind may be in such a complex condition that while it has abundant cause for joy, it has a sweet well of happy grief within itself. There is such a thing as a bitter sweet—the worldling has that. But there is also such a thing as a sweet bitter—and the Christian often has that—so that while he is weeping, he can also be singing. While his soul is cast down within him, yet does he lift up his horn on high and rejoice in the God of his salvation! It is quite possible to blend these two experiences and the life of God’s people thus becomes like a rainbow, consisting partly of the sunshine of Heaven and partly of the raindrops of earth. They sing because of their present and future joy—and they weep because of the sad past and the relics of the Fall that are still about them—and the sins of the age that still surround them. I will not say that “Going and Weeping” is a better motto than “Going and Singing,” but sometimes it is the only one we can use. And often it may be joined with the other. I hope I shall be able to show you that “going and weeping” is a very choice way of living.
We see in our text, first, a blessed combination. When we have spoken of that, we will mention when and where this combination should be conspicuous. And lastly we will give reasons why this combination should be manifest in our lives.
I. First, here is A BLESSED COMBINATION—“going and weeping.” The two things certify each other, supplement each other and stimulate each other.
First, they certify each other. I mean that when a man is going away from his past sins, away from his old habits, away from self-righteousness, if that reformation is a work of Divine Grace, it will have a watermark upon it—there will be “weeping” with the “going.” If the prodigal had only said, “I will arise and go to my father,” we might have doubted the reality of his repentance. But when he added, “and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before you, and am no more worthy to be called your son,” then the tears of penitence, which must have accompanied such a confession, verified the reformation. Beware, Beloved, of all dry-eyed reformations! Certain preachers disparage and run down repentance—they say that it is simply “a change of mind.” That is true in a sense, but what a change of mind it is—not such a change of mind as a man makes when, instead of buying one hat, he buys another or, instead of spending a shilling, he saves nine pence out of it! I have heard preachers refer to repentance as if it were a trifling, insignificant alteration of opinion—but if that is all the repentance we have had, it is a repentance of which we need to repent! The old-fashioned repentance is the only one that will bring you to Heaven! If you do not leave—
“The sins you loved before, And show that you in earnest grieve,
By doing so no more”—
you will come short of the repentance which the Holy Spirit works in the souls of the Lord’s own chosen people! There must be, as John the Baptist told the Pharisees and Sadducees, “fruits meet for repentance.” Or, as the marginal reading puts it, “answerable to amendment of life.” There must be true godly sorrow over your past evil conduct. There must be a loathing of yourself in the sight of God. And all the “going” that is not attended by “weeping” will be a bad going after all.
Now I will turn this Truth of God around the other way by reminding you that there are some persons who profess to be very repentant concerning the past—if they could live their lives over again they would not live at all as they have done—so they say and their tears flow copiously. I am not always pleased to see copious tears. When seeing inquirers, I have noticed that when men weep very much, they are either men of a tender spirit who are easily moved to tears, or else they have been so accustomed to drink that they have got into a maudlin state and cannot help crying. I would rather have tears falling inside a penitent than outside. Never condemn a man because he does not weep as others do—it may be that his heart is too full for tears. Nor condemn those who cry outwardly, for tears are often genuine evidences of repentance. I merely remark that a briny tear, in itself, is not a sufficient proof of that godly sorrow for sin of which the tear is only the index. And when I warned you against dry-eyed reformations, I meant those so-called reformations which do not include real sorrow for sin. External weeping is quite a secondary matter, but inward weeping there must be in all true converts. Some people cry a great deal and talk a great deal—they say that their heart is adamant and that they are dead as a stone. Of course they are dead! They never were spiritually alive and the natural, stony heart has never been taken out of their flesh! There is a great deal of truth in what they say, but they have not learned it from the Spirit of God. They have caught certain phrases from the lips of gracious people and merely say what they hear others say—just as parrots do when they are taught to repeat what their owners say.