No Tears in Heaven 2
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The Lord can also take away all present sorrow and grief from us by providentially removing its cause. Providence is full of sweet surprises and unexpected turns. When the sea has ebbed its uttermost, it turns again and covers all the sand. When we think the dungeon is locked, and that the bolt is rusted in, he can make the door fly open in a moment. When the river rolls deep and black before us, he can divide it with a word, or bridge it with his hand. How often have you found it so in the past? As a pilgrim to Canaan you have passed through the Red Sea, in which you once feared you would be drowned; the bitter wells of Marah were made sweet by God's presence; you fought the Amalekite, you went through the terrible wilderness, you passed by the place of the fiery serpents, and you have yet been kept alive, and so shall you be. As the clear shining comes after rain, so shall peace succeed your trials. As fly the black clouds before the compelling power of the wind, so will the eternal God make your griefs to fly before the energy of his grace. The smoking furnace of trouble shall be followed by the bright lamp of consolation.
Still, the surest method of getting rid of present tears, is communion and fellowship with God. When I can creep under the wing of my dear God and nestle close to his bosom, let the world say what it will, and let the devil roar as he pleases, and let my sins accuse and threaten as they may, I am safe, content, happy, peaceful, rejoicing.
"Let earth against my soul engage,
And hellish darts be hurled;
Now I can smile at Satan's rage,
And face a frowning world."
To say, "My Father, God," to put myself right into his hand, and feel that I am safe there. To look up to him though it be with tears in my eyes and feel that he loves me, and then to put my head right into his bosom as the prodigal did, and sob my griefs out there into my Father's heart, oh, this is the death of grief, and the life of all consolation. Is not Jehovah called the God of all comfort? You will find him so, beloved. He has been "our help in ages past;" he is "our hope for years to come." Had he not been my help, then had my soul perished utterly in the day of its weariness and its heaviness. Oh, I bear testimony for him this day that you cannot go to him and pour out your heart before him without finding a delightful solace.
When your friend cannot wipe away the tear; when you yourself with your strongest reasonings, and your boldest efforts cannot constrain yourself to resignation; when your heart beats high, and seems as if it would burst with grief, then pour out your hearts before him. God is a refuge for us. He is our castle and high tower, our refuge and defense. Only go to him, and you shall find that even here on earth God shall wipe away all tears from your eyes.
III. Now we shall have to turn our thoughts to what is the real teaching of the text, namely, THE REMOVAL OF ALL TEARS FROM THE BLESSED ONES ABOVE. There are many reasons why glorified spirits cannot weep. These are well known to you, but let us just hint at them. All outward causes of grief are gone. They will never hear the toll of the death knell in heaven. The mattock and the shroud are unknown things there. The horrid thought of death never flits across an immortal spirit. They are never parted; the great meeting has taken place to part no more. Up yonder they have no losses and crosses in business. "They serve God day and night in his temple." They know no broken friendships there. They have no ruined hearts, no blighted prospects. They know even as they are known, and they love even as they are loved. No pain can ever fall on them; as yet they have no bodies, but when their bodies shall he raised from the grave they shall he spiritualized so that they shall not be capable of grief. The tear-gland shall be plucked away. Although much may be there that is human, at least the tear-gland shall be gone, they shall have no need of that organ. Their bodies shall be unsusceptible of grief. They shall rejoice for ever. Poverty, famine, distress, nakedness, peril, persecution, slander, all these shall have ceased. "The sun shall not light on them, nor any heat." "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more," and therefore well may their tears cease to flow.
Again, all inward evils will have been removed by the perfect sanctification wrought in them by the Holy Spirit. No evil of' heart, nor unbelief in departing from the living God, shall vex them in Paradise. No suggestions of the arch enemy shall be met and assisted by the uprisings of iniquity within. They shall never be led to think harshly of God, for their hearts shall be all love. Sin shall have no sweetness to them, for they shall be perfectly purified from all depraved desires. There shall be no lusts of the eye, no lusts of the flesh, no pride of life to be snares to their feet. Sin is shut out, and they are shut in. They are for ever blessed, because they are without fault before the throne of God. What a heaven must it be to be without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing! Well may they cease to mourn who have ceased to sin.
All fear of change also has been for ever shut out. They know that they are eternally secure. Saints on earth are fearful of falling, some believers even dream of falling away- they think God will forsake them, and that men will persecute and take them. No such fears can vex the blessed ones who view their Father's face. Countless ages may revolve, but eternity shall not be exhausted, and while eternity endures, their immortality and blessedness shall co-exist with it. They dwell within a city which shall never be attacked, they bask in a sun which shall never set, they swim in a flood-tide which shall never ebb, they drink of a river which shall never dry, they pluck fruit from a tree which shall never be withered. Their blessedness knows not the thought, which would act like a canker at its heart, that it might, perhaps, pass away and cease to be. They cannot, therefore, weep, because they are infallibly secure, and certainly assured of their eternal blessedness.
Why should they weep, when every desire is gratified? They cannot wish for anything which they shall not have. Eye and ear, heart and hand, judgment, imagination, hope, desire, will, every faculty shall be satisfied. All their capacious powers can wish, they shall continually enjoy. Though "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard the things which God has prepared for them that love him," yet we know enough, by the revelation of the Spirit, to understand that they are supremely blessed. The joy of Christ, which is an infinite fullness of delight, is in them. They Bathe Themselves in the Bottomless, Shoreless Sea of Infinite Joy.
Still, dear friends, this does not quite account for the fact, that all tears are wiped from their eyes. I like better the text which tells us that God shall do it, and I want you to think with me, of fountains of tears which exist even in heaven, so that the celestial ones must inevitably weep if God did not by a perpetual miracle take away their tears. It strikes me, that if God himself did not interfere by a perpetual outflow of abundant consolations, the glorified have very deep cause for weeping. You will say, "How is this?"
Why, in the first place, if it were not for this, what regrets they must have for their past sins. The more holy a man is, the more he hates sin. It is a token of growth in sanctification, not that repentance becomes less acute, but that it becomes more and more deep. Surely, dear friends, when we shall be made perfectly holy, we shall have a greater hatred of sin. If on earth we could be perfectly holy, why, methinks we should do little else than mourn, to think that so foul, and black, and venomous a thing as sin had ever stained us- that we should offend against so good, so gracious, so tender, so abundantly loving a God. Why, the sight of Christ, "the Lamb in the midst of the throne," would make them remember the sin from which he purged 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 not, God wipes away all these tears from their eyes. And though they cannot but regret that they have sinned, yet 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 black foil, a sort of setting for the sparkling jewel of eternal, sovereign grace, and it may be that for this reason they shed no tears over their past lives. They sing, "Unto him that has loved us, and washed us from our sins in his blood!" -and they sing that heavenly song without a tear in their eyes. I cannot understand how this may be, for I know I could not do so as I now am; let this be the best reason, that God has wiped away the tears from their eyes.
Again, do you not think, beloved, that the thought of the vast expense of shame and woe which the Savior lavished for their redemption must, in the natural order of things, be a constant source of grief? We sing sometimes that hymn which reminds us of the angelic song before the throne, and in one of its verses the poet says-
"But when to Calvary they turn,
Silent their harps abide;
Suspended songs a moment mourn
The God that loved and died."
Now, that is natural and poetical, but it is not true, for you know very well that there are no suspended songs in heaven, and that there is no mourning even over Christ "that loved and died." It seems to me, that unless I were thoroughly spiritualized and in such a holy state as those are in heaven, I could not look at the Lamb without tears in my eyes. How could I think of those five wounds; that bloody sweat in Gethsemane; that cruel crowning with the thorns in Gabbatha; that mockery and shame at Golgotha- how could I think of it without tears? How could I feel that he loved me and gave himself for me, without bursting into a passion of holy affection and sorrow? Tears seem to be the natural expression of such hallowed joy and grief-
"Love and grief my heart dividing,
With my tears his feet I'll bathe."
I must think it would be so in heaven, if it were not that by a glorious method, I know not how, God shall wipe away even those tears from their eyes. Does it not need the interference of God to accomplish this wonder?
Is there not another cause for grief, namely, wasted opportunities. Beloved, when we once ascend to heaven, there will be no more feeding of Christ's hungry people; no giving drink to the thirsty; no visiting his sick ones, or his imprisoned ones; no clothing of the naked; there will be no instructing the ignorant; no holding forth the Word of God among "a crooked and perverse generation." It has been often and truly said, if there could be regrets in heaven, those regrets would be, that we have wasted so many opportunities of honoring Christ on earth- opportunities which will then be past for ever. Now in heaven their hearts are not steeled and hardened, so that they can look back upon sins of omission without sorrow. I believe there will be the tenderest form of conscience there, for perfect purity would not be consistent with any degree of hardness of heart.
If they are sensitive and tender in heart, it is inevitable that they should look back with regret upon the failures of the life below unless some more mighty emotion should overwhelm that of contrition. I can say, beloved, if God would take me to heaven this morning, if he did not come in, and by a special act of his omnipotence, dry up that fountain of tears, I should 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 labored more abundantly for Christ. That text, to which we heard a reference from a dear brother during the week, where Paul says, "I call God to witness that for the space of three years I ceased not night and day with tears, to warn every one of you," is a text that none of us can read without blushes and tears. And in heaven, methinks, if I saw the Apostle Paul, I must burst out into weeping, if it were not for this text, which says that "God shall wipe away all tears," and these among them. Who but the Almighty God could do this!
Perhaps, again, another source of tears may suggest itself to you; namely, regrets in heaven for our mistakes, and misrepresentations, and unkindnesses towards other Christian brethren. How surprised we shall be to meet in heaven some whom we did not love on earth! We would not commune with them at the Lord's table. We would not own that they were Christians. We looked at them very askance if we saw them in the street. We were jealous of all their ministries. We suspected their zeal as being nothing better than rant, and we looked upon their best exertions as having sinister motives at the bottom. We said many hard things, and felt a great many more than we said. When we shall see these unknown and unrecognized brethren in heaven will not their presence naturally remind us of our offenses against Christian love and spiritual unity? I cannot suppose a perfect man, looking at another perfect man, without regretting that he ever ill-treated him. It seems to me to be the trait of a gentleman, a Christian, and of a perfectly sanctified man above all others, that he should regret having misunderstood, and misconstrued, and misrepresented one who was as dear to Christ as himself. I am sure as I go round among the saints in heaven, I cannot (in the natural order of things) help feeling "I did not assist you as I ought to have done. I did not sympathize with you as I ought to have done. I spoke a hard word to you. I was estranged from you." And I think you would all have to feel the same; inevitably you must, if it were not that by some heavenly means, I know not how, the eternal God shall so overshadow believers with the abundant bliss of his own self that even that cause of tears shall be wiped away.
Has it never struck you, dear friends, that if you go to heaven and see your dear children left behind unconverted, it would naturally be a cause of sorrow? When my mother told me that if I perished she would have to say "Amen" to my condemnation, I knew it was true and it sounded very terrible, and had a good effect on my mind. But at the same time I could not help thinking, "Well, you will be very different from what you are now." I thought "Well, I love to think of your weeping over me in this world, far better than to think of you as a perfect being, with a tearless eye, looking on the damnation of your own child."
It really is a very terrible spectacle- the thought of a perfect being looking down upon hell, for instance, as Abraham did, and yet feeling no sorrow. For you will recollect that, in the tones in which Abraham addressed the rich man, there is nothing of pity, there is not a single syllable which betokens any sympathy with him in his dreadful woes. And one does not quite comprehend that perfect beings, God-like beings, beings full of love, and everything that constitutes the glory of God's complete nature, should yet be unable to weep, even over hell itself. They cannot weep over their own children lost and ruined! Now, how is this? If you will tell me, I shall be glad, for I cannot tell you. I do not believe that there will be one atom less tenderness, that there will be one fraction less of amiability, and love, and sympathy- I believe there will be more- but that they will be in some way so refined and purified, that while compassion for suffering is there, detestation of sin shall be there to balance it, and a state of complete equilibrium shall be attained. Perfect acquiescence in the divine will is probably the secret of it. But it is not my business to guess. I do not know what handkerchief the Lord will use, but I know that he will wipe all tears away from their faces, and these tears among them.
Yet, once again, it seems to me that spirits before the throne, taking, as they must do, a deep interest in everything which concerns the honor of the Lord Jesus Christ, must feel deeply grieved when they see the cause of truth imperilled, and the kingdom of Christ, for a time struggling. Think of Luther, or Wycliffe, or John Knox, as they see the advances of Popery just now. Take John Knox first, if you will. Think of him looking down and seeing cathedrals rising in Scotland, dedicated to the service of the Pope and the devil. Oh, how the stern old man, even in glory, methinks, would begin to shake himself; and the old lion lash his sides once more, and half wish that he could come down and pull the nests to pieces that the rooks might fly away. Think of Wycliffe looking down on this country where the gospel has been preached so many years, and seeing monks in the Church of England, and seeing spring up in our national establishment everywhere, not disguised Popery as it was ten years ago, but stark naked Popery, downright Popery that unblushingly talks about the "Catholic Church," and is not even Anglican any longer. What would Wycliffe say?
Why, I think as he leans over the battlements of heaven, unless Wycliffe be mightily altered, and I cannot suppose he is (except for the better, and that would make him more tender-hearted and more zealous for God still), he must weep to think that England has gone back so far, and that on the dial of Ahaz the sun has beat a retreat. I do not know how it is they do not weep in heaven, but they do not. The souls under the altar cry, "How long? how long? how long?" There comes up a mighty intercession from those who were slaughtered in the days gone by for Christ- their prayer rises, "How long? how long? how long?" and God as yet does not avenge his own elect though they cry day and night unto him. Yet that delay does not cost them a single tear! They feel so sure that the victory will come, they anticipate so much the more splendid a triumph because of its delay, and therefore they do both patiently hope and quietly wait to see the salvation of God.
They know that without us they cannot be made perfect, and so they wait until we are taken up, that the whole company may be completed, and that then the soul may be dressed in its body, and they may be perfected in their bliss- they wait but they do not weep. They wait and they cry, but in their cry no sorrow has a place. Now I do not understand this, because it seems to me that the more I long for the coming of Christ, the more I long to see his kingdom extended, the more I shall weep when things go wrong, when I see Christ blasphemed, his cross trampled in the mire, and the devil's kingdom established; but the reason is all in this, "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."
I thought I would just indicate to you why it says that God does it. It strikes me that these causes of tears could not be removed by an angel, could not be taken away by any form of spiritual enjoyment apart from the direct interposition of Almighty God. Think of all these things and wonder over them, and you will recall many other springs of grief which must have flowed freely if Omnipotence had not dried them up completely. Then ask how it is that the saints do not weep and you cannot get any other answer than this- God has done it in a way unknown to us, Forever Taking Away from Them the Power to Weep.
IV. And now, beloved, SHALL WE BE AMONG THIS HAPPY COMPANY? Here is the question, and the context enables us to answer it. "They have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." There is their character. "Therefore are they before the throne of God." The blood is a sacred argument for their being there- the precious blood. Observe, "they washed their robes." It was not merely their feet, their worst parts, but they washed their robes, their best parts. A man's robes are his most honored attire, he puts them on, and he does not mind our seeing his robes. There may be filthiness beneath, but the robes are generally the cleanest of all. But you see they washed even them.
Now it is the mark of a Christian that he not only goes to Christ to wash away his black sins, but to Wash His Duties Too. I would not pray a prayer unwashed with Jesus' blood. I would not like a hymn I have sung to go up to heaven except it had first been bathed in blood. If I would desire to be clothed with zeal as with a cloak, yet I must wash the cloak in blood. Though I would be sanctified by the Holy Spirit and wear imparted righteousness as a raiment of needlework, yet I must wash even that in blood. What do you say, dear friends? Have you washed in blood? The meaning of it is, have you trusted in the atoning sacrifice? "Without shedding of blood there is no remission of sin." Have you taken Christ to be your all in all? Are you now depending on him? If so, out of deep distress you shall yet ascend leaning on your Beloved to the throne of God, and to the bliss which awaits his chosen.
But if not, "there is no other name," there is no other way. Your damnation will be as just as it will be sure. Christ is " the way," but if you will not tread it you shall not reach the end. Christ is "the truth," but if you will not believe him, you shall not rejoice. Christ is "the life," but if you will not receive him you shall abide among the dead, and be cast out among the corrupt. From such a doom may the Lord deliver us, and give us a simple confidence in the divine work of the Redeemer, and to him shall be the praise eternally. Amen.
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