If the heart of God's saints were a deeper fountain of tears, more sick
people would be healed in these days. Around are the sick and suffering,
but alas, how few tears! When saints have so deepened into God, cultivated
such a tenderness of heart, and become so deeply compassionate, that they
will "water their couch with their tears all the night" at the sight of
sick persons, they will get answers to their prayers. To such God will
say, "Behold, I will heal him." If tears will not reach God, the case is
hopeless. Esau sought for a place of repentance and sought it with tears,
but could not find it. The mentioning of tears here implies that the
addition of tears to earnest heart-seeking has influence with God.
Jeremiah, in his lamentations for fallen Israel, said, "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!" He knew that if
anything would avail with God, it would be tears therefore he wished that
his eyes were a fountain of tears, so that God might be moved to save
Israel.
"They that sow in tears shall reap in joy." There can be no harvest from
seed sown unless the seed is watered. As you go out to sow seed in the
Master's field, water them with your tears if you would have a joyful
harvest. May God save his people from unfeelingness of heart! A soul with
no tears is a soul with no flowers. There is no verdure where there is no
water. Those who are not deep enough in God to shed tears over a lost and
ruined world are not deep enough to shed tears of joy over a soul's
salvation. Out from the depth of his heart Jesus cried, "O Jerusalem,
Jerusalem! how oft would I have gathered thee as a hen gathereth her brood
under her wing, but ye would not." When did you shed tears over lost
souls? Do you ever have a Gethsemane? Is your pillow ever dampened by
tears shed for a doomed world? Do you ever go out beneath the starry sky
and with outstretched arms cry in the severe pains of travail, "O lost
souls, lost souls! how oft would I have gathered thee to Jesus, as a hen
gathers her brood under her wing, but ye would not"? Only those who have
deep travail of soul for the lost can fully rejoice when the lost are
found.
One of the apostles said he served the "Lord with many tears." A heart
from which flows no tears is not a heart that is wholly imbued by the
Spirit of God. Tears of compassion for the suffering, tears of warning and
entreaty for the lost, tears of joy for the saved, will flow through a
perfectly holy heart as freely as water through a sieve. Sunlight
perforates the block of ice from the center outward; so the love of God
perforates the heart to its depths and lets the tears of affection, pity,
and sympathy flow out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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