GOD’S WORD FOR JULY 24~ ~ Revelation 7:17 ~ ~ “The Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and He will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

From the book, “We Shall See God” with sermons from the “Prince of Preachers”, C.H. Spurgeon, and comments by Randy Alcorn.

SPURGEON:

GOD DRIES OUR TEARS

 Revelation 7:17 ~ ~ “The Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and He will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

For anyone who knows what it is to weep over sin, loss, or pain, heaven offers a beautiful promise:  One day God Himself will wipe the tears from our eyes.  Even better, one day He will transform those tears into laughter.

The night is dark, but the morning comes.  Over the hills of darkness, the day breaks forth.  True, the grave is still before you, but your Lord has snatched the sting from death and the victory from the grave.

Do not, you burdened brother or sister, limit yourself to the confining miseries of the present hour.  Rather, gaze with fondness on the enjoyment of the past, and view with equal love the infinite blessings of eternity past, when you did not exist, but when God chose you for Himself and wrote your name in His Book of Life.  Then let your glance flash forward to eternity future to see the mercies which will be yours even here on Earth and the glories which are stored up for you beyond the skies.

I will be greatly rewarded if I can minister comfort to one person whose spirit is heavily burdened by leading that person to remember the glory which is yet to be revealed.

You cannot, dear friends, pass through the wilderness of this world without discovering that thorns and thistles grow abundantly in it.  And that, step as you may, your feet must sometimes feel the sudden and unexpected wound.  The sea of life is salt to all men.  We may forget to laugh, but we will always know how to weep.  As the saturated clouds must drip, so must the human race, cursed by the Fall, weep out its frequent griefs.

I see before me in a bottle:  it is dark and foul, for it contains tears distilled by the force of the fires of sin.  Sin is more frequently the mother of sorrow than all the other pains of life put together.  Dear brothers and sisters, I am convinced that we endure more sorrow from our sins than from God’s darkest providence.

I want you to think with me of fountains of tears which would exist even in heaven, tears that the glorified saints would inevitably weep if God did not, by a perpetual miracle, take away those tears.  It strikes me that if God Himself did not interfere by a perpetual outflow of abundant comfort, the glorified would have many good reasons for weeping.

You say, “How is this?’  In the first place, if it were not for God’s gracious intervention, what tremendous regret they would have for their past sins.  The more holy a person is, the more he hates sin.  It is a proof of growth in sanctification, not that repentance becomes less acute, but that it becomes more and more deep. 

Surely, dear friends, when we are made perfectly holy, we will have a greater hatred of sin.  If on Earth we could be perfectly holy, I think we would do nothing else but mourn.  To think that so foul and dirty and poisonous a thing as sin had ever stained us!

To think that we would have offended such a good and gracious and tender, richly loving God.  The very sight of Christ, “the Lamb in the midst of the throne”  (Revelation 7:17) , would make (the redeemed ones in heaven) remember the sin from which He purified them.  The sight of their heavenly Father’s perfection would be blinding to them if it were not that by some sacred means which we know nothing about, God wipes away all those tears from their eyes.

Though they can’t help but regret that they have sinned, perhaps they know that sin has been made to glorify God by the overcoming power of almighty grace; that sin has been made to be a dark background, a sort of setting for the sparkling jewel of eternal, sovereign grace.

They sing, “to Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood”  (Revelation 1:5).  But they sing that heavenly song without a tear in their eyes.  I cannot understand how this can be, for I know I could not do it in my present condition.  Let this be the best reason: that God has wiped away every tear from their eyes.

If God would take me to heaven this morning, and if He did not intervene by a special act of His omnipotence and dry up that fountain of tears, I would almost forget the glories of Paradise in the midst of my own shame that I have not preached more earnestly and have not prayed more fervently and have not labored more abundantly for Christ.

The apostle Paul tells the Christians, “For three years I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears.” (Acts 20:31).  This text is one that none of us can read without shame and tears.  And in heaven, I think, if I saw Paul, I would burst into tears, if it were not for this text, which says that “God will wipe away every tear.”

Who but the Almighty God could do this?

(Tomorrow we’ll see what Randy Alcorn’s comments are on this subject)

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