A time to weep

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"A time to weep." Ecclesiastes 3:4

Does a man only weep once in his life? Does not the time of weeping run, more or less, throughout a Christian's life? Does not mourning run parallel with his existence in this tabernacle of clay? for man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards.

True Christians will know many times to weep—they will have often to sigh and cry over their base hearts—to mourn with tears of godly sorrow their backslidings from God—to weep over their broken idols, faded hopes, and marred prospects—to weep at having so grieved the Spirit of God by their disobedience, carnality, and worldliness.

But above all things will they have to weep over the inward idolatries of their filthy nature—to weep that they ever should have treated with such insult that God whom they desire to love and adore—that they should so neglect and turn their backs upon that Saviour who crowns them with loving-kindness and tender mercies—and that they bear so little in mind, the instruction that has been communicated to them by the Holy Spirit.

Oh, how different is the weeping, chastened spirit of a living soul from the hardened, seared presumption of a proud professor! How different are the feelings of a broken-hearted child of God from the lightness, the frivolity, the emptiness, and the worldliness—of hundreds who stand in a profession of religion!

How different is a mourning saint, weeping in his solitary corner over his base backsliding's—from a reckless professor who justifies himself in every action, who thinks sin a light thing, and who, however inconsistently he acts—never feels conscience wounded thereby.