The Tears of the Saviour — Ian Paisley

I'd like to say how very delighted I am to be back with you in faith and to have this opportunity of ministering to you from God's Word. We had two of your elders and their wives with us at our Easter Convention, Brother Driggers and Brother Voss.

I see Brother Driggers has returned safe and sound with his good wife, and I hope that Brother Voss will return in his life safe and sound as well. We had a great time of fellowship and tremendous meetings on Easter Monday.

In fact, we served over 6 ,000 meals on Easter Monday, so you may guess the crowd of people that attended the convention meetings, and what a time of blessing. I think that you should plan to come, all of you, next Easter, and we'll give you a really good Ulster time, and I'm sure you'll come home refreshed and blessed.

I'm glad, too, of the blessing of God on the work here. I trust your keeping in prayer that God will send you the man of God's choice, and that this pastorate will be filled, and this pulpit will be filled with the man that the Lord would have filled.

I'd just like to mention that we have commenced a new ministry since last I was with you. It is a cassette tape ministry of beginning the day with God and His Word. It's a text of Scripture, a short exposition by myself, and then a gospel song by one of our ministers there, Everett William McRae, who is the top gospel singer in the United Kingdom.

In fact, his last record has far outstripped all other gospel singers in the UK. I'd like you to join with us in this ministry, and I'm sure that with all the equipment they have in this church, they'll be able to copy these tapes for those that want them.

Already we have almost 5 ,000 people sharing in this ministry, and I would like to think that the members of this church also join us as a family each morning around the blessed Word of God. And then we have a complementary ministry, which is the evening and the day with God and His Word.

So you can start the day with me saying good morning to you, and you can end the day with me saying good night to you, and you can get the Word and the song, and I believe it will be a means of great blessing to you.

So I trust that the opportunity will be taken and that this ministry will be a blessing here as it is in our other churches around Ulster. Now, if you have your Bible, I wonder would you open it with me at a great chapter in that great book of Hebrews.

Digging Into the Word of God Through Personal Bible Study

I would like this morning to whet your appetite for more love to God's Word and more study in the Word of God. It is the great objective of my ministry to get the people of God to dig into the Word of God for themselves, and I would like today to make some suggestions to you upon a particular theme.

Now, I wouldn't have time today to exhaust this theme because if I wanted to preach the length I wanted to preach, we would be here next Lord's Day morning, and we would only really have started. But I want to try and suggest to you many triumphs of thought which you yourselves can follow out in your own personal Bible study.

But let me read a few verses with you from chapter 5 of Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 5. For every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins, who can have compassion on the ignorant and on them that are out of the way, for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity.

And by reason hereof he ought, as for the people, so also for himself to offer for sins. And no man taketh this honor unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron. So also Christ glorified not himself to be made a high priest, but he that said unto him, Thou art my son, today have I begotten thee.

As he saith also in another place, Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears.

I want you to mark that word, tears, unto him that was able to save him from death and was heard in that he feared. God will bless his word to our hearts. Let's stand for a little word of prayer before we have the preaching.

Father, we turn to thy word. Thou hast written this book, and thou alone canst reveal its deep truths. Blessed Spirit of God, author of the book, reveal the things of Christ to me today. Grant that our eyes may behold the King in all his beauty.

To this end I take the promised Holy Ghost, the blessed power of Pentecost to fill me to the uttermost. I take. Thank God he undertakes for me. And the people of God said, Amen. You may be seated. When you study the Gospels, you will discover that the postures of the Lord Jesus Christ are worthy of earnest consideration and meditation.

You can behold the Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospels in many ways. Of course, we have the Lord Jesus Christ looking. And I would suggest to you, as you start reading the Gospels again, to mark all the times that the Lord Jesus Christ looked.

I think that you will find twelve. If you find thirteen, please write me and let me know. But I think that there are twelve looks of Jesus prefaced either with the Lord beholding or the Lord looking. Then, of course, there is the Lord sitting.

And there are some wonderful places where the Lord sat. And when he was twelve years of age, he was discovered sitting in the temple. And you will discover that the last place where it is recorded that the Lord sat was after his resurrection, and he was made known to them as he sat at meet with them.

So you should mark all the places where the Lord sat. And I could go on. The Lord Jesus Christ spitting. That is an unusual one. But you know that is in the Gospels as well. And there is a great mystery in the spittles of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, it would not do any good for me to start to tell you anything more about that, for you would not read it for yourself. You would not think about it. You would not turn it over. So I am not going to do any homework for you on that one.

I want you to look at it yourself. And perhaps someday if I behave myself, today I will be asked back again, and I might preach on that. But today I want to deal with the Lord weeping, the tears of the Savior.

The Tears of the Savior as a Biblical Theme

This is a wonderful subject, and it is a subject that calls for our meditation and earnest prayers that we might really, as it were, fathom the depths of the tears and the weeping ministry of the Son of God.

Now, could I say to you the Bible is a book of weeping, and its pages are steamed with tears. There are many tears in the Word of God. And of course, when you are studying a subject in the Scripture, you should always keep in mind a very important rule of biblical interpretation.

It is called the law of the first mention. Where were tears first mentioned in the Scriptures? And very significantly, you will find they are mentioned first of all in Genesis chapter 21 and verse 16.

And could it be more appropriate that the first tears mentioned in the Scriptures are the tears of a mother? A mother's tears. How precious that is. Turn to the Scripture, Genesis 21 and verse 16. And the mother is Hagar.

And it says, She went and sat down over against him, that is, Ishmael, a good way off, as it were, of Boshah. For she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over against him and lift up his voice and wept the tears of a mother.

And it is most significant, for the Bible has a wonderful unity about it, that the first reference to tears in the New Testament are also the tears of a mother. Turn to Matthew chapter 2, the second chapter of Matthew.

You remember Herod's soldiers came to kill the babes of Bethlehem. And we read concerning that terrible, tragic episode in history. Verse 15 of Matthew 2, In Ramah was there a voice heard, lamentation and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not the tears of a mother.

The Promise of a Future Without Tears, Death, and Sorrow

But of course there is another important law in the interpretation of Scripture, and that's the law of the last mention. Where are tears last mentioned in the Bible? And you'll find that in Revelation chapter 7 and verse 17.

And then the complementary verse to that in Revelation chapter 21 and verse 4. Revelation chapter 7 and the last verse, verse 17. For the lamb which is in the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.

And then turn over to the 21st chapter, and you'll notice that great truth is reiterated. And it is repeated in verse 4 of chapter 21. And this time you get the reason why the tears are wiped away. Repetition in Scripture is not simply repetition.

When God speaks once, yea, twice, and man perceiveth it not, it is because man has not listened carefully to what God says. So in the repetition of this truth in 21 of Revelation in verse 4, it says God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.

And there'll be no more tears, because the reason for tears is going to be taken away forevermore. Why do we weep? We weep because death come, but thank God there's going to be no more death. No more cause for weeping, because death no more.

We've all stood around the coffin. We've all stood around the open grave. We've all felt the bitterness of bereavement and the hardness of the passing. But bless God, no more death. What a day that's going to be.

And then look at it. You weep because of sorrow, but there's going to be no more sorrow. We used to sing in Sabbath school, there'll be no sorrow there in my Father's house, in my Father's house. Then look at the next one, nor crying.

And of course it's crying that brings the weeping, but if you don't cry anymore, thank God there'll be no more tears. And then look at the last one, neither shall there be any more pain. So the reasons for tears will be done away.

Not only the root of tears will be dealt with, but the fruit of tears will be dealt with as well. Now let us come back to our subject. That's only by way of introduction. I haven't started to preach yet.

That's just introducing the subject. I want you to read your Bible and find out the fathers that wept in Scripture, the mothers that wept in Scripture, the brothers that wept in Scripture, and the sisters that wept in Scripture.

And they all have a special message. Now I can well understand why fathers weep, why mothers weep. I can well understand why children weep. But when I come to this great mystery, that He whom heaven and earth cannot contain, He who is the second person of the adorable Trinity, He who is eternally and everlastingly God, He who is just as eternal as the Father, and just as much God as the Holy Ghost, that when He became flesh and dwelt among us, and there was no diminishing of His deity, when He became flesh, His deity was not humanized, nor was His manhood deified, because He is God and man, two distinct natures in one person forever.

The Full Deity and Full Humanity of Christ

And let me tell you, I am amused that Jesus wept in the complexity of the personality of the incarnate Son of God. There was a manifestation of tears, a very righteous fundamentalist in this age of apostasy, in this day of religious unbelief and infidelity, in this day when the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ is attacked, and the focus point of the attack is upon the Godhead of the Lord Jesus.

We must emphasize, and we must declare, and we must contend for the full-orbed deity of the Son of God. But there is another great truth, we must contend for the full-orbed humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He was not only very God of very God, but He was very man of very man. And you know there is a statement in the Scripture that only the Holy Ghost would dare to utter, and it says He was made in the likeness of sinful flesh.

Did you ever think of that? He wasn't made in the likeness of Adam's innocent flesh. No sir, He was made in the likeness of sinful flesh. He bore our sicknesses and carried our sorrows. The blessed Son of God knew what it was to be hungry.

Do you remember one day early in the morning when He had not breakfasted in Bethany, He came along the road to Jerusalem and the Son of God was hungry. And He saw a fig tree, and He desired to eat of the figs of that tree.

But when He came to it, there was nothing but leaves. And He cursed the fig tree. And I was a boy, I never understood that. Because I knew that the Lord Jesus Christ didn't do that out of anger. That there was a significance in that cursing.

And then I remember that the first Adam came to a fig tree. What did he come for? He came for leaves. Because he was a fallen sinner, and he needed them to cover the nakedness of his fallen soul. But that blessed, sinless Son of God didn't need fig leaves to cover over any sin, for He had no sin.

And so that fig tree was an insult to His sinlessness. And so He cursed it. He had no need of those fig leaves. There's always something significant in every passage of Scripture. You've got to dig down and find out what it's all about.

But the Son of God was hungry. One day He walked along the road to Samaria, and He was tired. And He sat in a tired posture by the well. One day He went into a boat and sleep overcame Him. And He laid down and He pillowed His head upon the stern of that vessel.

And as the storm rose, He was so tired that He heard not that storm. My blessed Master, sleeping, tired out, weary in body. And there's another text of Scripture that only the Holy Ghost would dare to write, crucified through weakness.

Did you ever think of that? Crucified through weakness. Now when we come to a study of this subject, you will find that there are three times where the Lord Jesus Christ wept. Three in Scripture is the number of completion.

The Three Recorded Occasions When Jesus Wept

So we are not surprised that there's a three-fold record of the tears of Jesus. The first one you will find in John's Gospel chapter 11 and verse 35. John's Gospel chapter 11 and verse 35. And it is a short, it's the shortest verse in the Bible.

Jesus wept. Do you know where the longest verse in the Bible is? I said that the other Sunday morning in my church, and a wee boy going on. He says, I know where the longest verse is. I don't tell anybody.

Let them find it out for themselves. So I'll tell you when you go home today, start reading in Genesis and look for the longest verse. It will be Wednesday before you find it. So that will give you a good hint where it is.

Yes, Jesus wept. The tears of Jesus for a departed companion. Domestic sorrow. Bethany was another home. It was perhaps the only home the Savior had. And one day death came. And one day a beloved companion departed.

And Jesus wept. Domestic sorrow brought tears to the eyes of the Son of God. Then if you turn with me to Luke's Gospel chapter 19 and verse 41. Luke's Gospel chapter 19 and verse 41. You'll find the next one.

And it's the tears of Jesus over the city. And when he came to the city, verse 41 of Luke 19. And when he was come near, he beheld the city and wept over it. He beheld the city and wept over it. That's the tears of Jesus.

Not for domestic sorrow, but for national sorrow. For the sorrow of his country. Tears for a doomed city. You see that city rejected him. If you go on and read, If thou hadst known even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eye.

And the Lord saw as he put to his eye the telescope of his foreknowledge. He saw that in A .D. 70, the Roman general Titus would come with his legions of Roman soldiers and destroy the city. And burn the temple with fire and put woman and man and child to the sword.

And over a city that was doomed, the Son of God did weep. He had sorrow for his nation. National sorrow. Tears for national sorrow. Then we come to the last one. And the last one, of course, is in Hebrews chapter 5 and verse 7.

The chapter of Hebrews and verse 7. Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplication with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared.

That's the difficult one. Now, I used to have a lot of difficulty with that scripture. It is a special reference to the Garden of Gethsemane. And that's the tears of Jesus resulting from soul sorrow. Tears for a darkened cross.

So there's the tears of Jesus for a departed companion. The tears of Jesus for a doomed city. And the tears of Jesus for a darkened cross. And let me show you something. Every time you have three things specially classified concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, you will discover that they have to do with his threefold offices.

Christ's Threefold Office as Prophet, Priest, and King

The shorter catechism, which is the great little Presbyterian catechism of theology. And you should all get a copy and you should all study it. Even the great C .H. Spurgeon, who was a Baptist, he took the shorter catechism and making his own changes, of course, in baptism, taught his people theology from a Presbyterian catechism.

He was a very wise man. Now, let me say this to you. In that little catechism, it asks the question, what offices does Christ execute for his people? And he executed the office of a prophet and a priest and a king.

Both in his state of humiliation and exaltation. Now, let's look at these three tears of Jesus. Let's examine them. The Lord Jesus Christ walks into the graveyard. There has been a king in that graveyard before him.

The king of terrors and the terror of kings has been there. And you can see the domain of king death all around that graveyard. The Lord Jesus says, roll away the stone. And Martha says, no, Lord. My brother has been buried four days.

By this time his body stinketh. It's corrupted. But the Lord Jesus Christ is standing there to execute the office of a king. And thank God he's a greater king than king death. And he takes the scepter of death and he smashes that scepter across his knee.

He takes the throne of death and he hurls it down and smashes it on the cold slab of the sepulcher. And as a king, he says, Lazarus, come forth. And that stinking, corrupting body becomes as healthy a body as you could ever see.

And all the result of the skin worm's destruction in a split second is completely overruled. And in the graveyard, in the graveyard door, in the sepulcher's door, there appears the living Lazarus. Why?

Because the king is there. Those are the tears of the king. The royal tears of Jesus. I'll leave that thought with you. I'd like to develop it. You know, there's a difference between tears. My little girl, Cherith, not so little now, but when she was a little girl, she had a very favorite doll.

It was one of those dolls that you could take the head and screw it round. And she put it on my knee one day and I was experimenting and I screwed the head off. So it was a headless doll. And I tell you, her heart was broken and she ran to her mother and the tears were running down her cheeks.

And she was weeping tears. They weren't artificial tears. They were real tears. Little mother heart broken because her doll was without its head. But I soon screwed the head on again. And I said, come back, Cherith.

And when she came back, the head was back on. And her tears, she started to smile and the tears all disappeared. Those tears were real, but they were only the tears of a child. I stood at a grave and there was a man with me by my side.

His wife and the mother of his children was in the coffin and the coffin was in the grave. And that man put his hand on the little curly headed boy at one side and the little curly headed boy at the other side who were forever without their mother.

And that man's chest heaved and the tears scalded down his cheeks. It was the tears of a man. It's a great difference between the tears of a child and the tears of a man. What shall I say of the tears of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords?

Between the tears of humanity and the tears of the blessed incarnate Son, there is a great gulf fixed. Let's come to the second one. He wept over the city. Why did he weep? Because he saw what was going to happen.

He saw that the city of Jerusalem was going to be completely and totally overthrown. He saw that a terrible catastrophe was going to take place in that city and he was standing there as a prophet. Those are the prophetic tears of Jesus.

Christ the King weeping. Christ the prophet weeping. Now let's turn back and I can prove the last one from the Word of God to you. So that you'll not say, well that's very nice, but there's not much scriptural proof of it.

But let's come to the last one, the priest. He's the priest. And you will notice in verse 6, the text of scripture about his tears is preceded by the declaration of his priesthood. Thou art a priest forever.

It's not only preceded by a declaration of his priesthood, but it's succeeded by a declaration of his priesthood. Verse 10, called of God a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. So Christ the priest.

Christ's Priestly Tears in Gethsemane

Now we come to this difficult one. And when I was a boy I couldn't understand this. Because I said, how could the Lord Jesus Christ pray to be saved from death? He came to die. And he sent his fiancee to go to Jerusalem.

And he told Peter that he was going to die and he was going to be delivered into the hands of the Gentiles. And he was going to be crucified and the third day arise again. And all the Old Testament prophets spoke of his death.

Isaiah 53, the first gospel promise, Genesis 3 15, the seed of the woman shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel. And here we have Jesus saying, save me from death. How could it be? But let me tell you, friend, he didn't say, save me from the death of the cross.

We have to come now to Gethsemane. And when we come to Gethsemane, we can find in Gethsemane the secret of this great cry. Turn over with me to the record that's given of the Lord in Gethsemane. We'll turn over to Luke's gospel, the narrative in Luke's gospel.

Luke's gospel chapter 22. And in that narrative there, when the Lord Jesus Christ is in the garden, you will discover that in verse 39 he went as he was wont to the mount of Olives, verse 39 of Luke 22, and his disciples also followed him.

And when he was at the place, he said unto them, pray that ye enter not into temptation. Now just turn back for a moment or two to the Matthew narrative, the record that Matthew gives. You'll find it over in the 26th chapter.

Verse 36,. Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go yonder, and pray yonder. And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy.

Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, now mark this, even unto death tar ye here, and watch with me. And he went a little farther, and fell in his feet, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless not as I will, but as I will.

And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch, and pray that ye enter not into temptation. The Spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

Now notice the second prayer, and notice the subtle difference. He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me. Verse 39, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

If it may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done. And then verse 44,. And he left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words. That's the same words of prayer number two.

Now let's just look for a moment at this cup. The Lord Jesus Christ was not praying about the cup of the cross. He wasn't saying to His Father, if it be possible, don't let me die the death of the cross.

He had already entered into, from all eternity, a covenant engagement to take our sins, and to carry them to that tree, and die for them as our substitute, surety, sin-bearing sacrifice. And He never flinched from that.

He was born to die, and He came to die. What's this cup? Well, you see, there was one thing the Lord couldn't will. He could never will to sin. He couldn't will to sin. And let me tell you something. He could will Himself to die, but when He became sin for us, something was going to happen.

He was going to go out of God's presence. And He couldn't will Himself to go out of God's presence. That would have been sin. If He had deliberately chosen to go out from the presence of God, He would have been choosing to sin.

And yet when He viewed that cup, He knew that He was going to go out from God's presence. What happened when Adam sinned? God drove out the man because of his sin. And at the cross, God the Father had to drive out Christ from His presence, so in the depths of Calvary's agony, the tormented soul of Jesus would cry, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?

He couldn't will to do that. But He said, Father, if it be possible, remove this part of the suffering that I may not go out of Your presence. And the Father said, No, my son, I must drive you out. You must go out into the darkness.

All my wheels and billows must roll over you. And so it was the Father's will, but He couldn't will it. For had He willed it, it would have been sin. Now having said that, did He cry to be saved from death?

He did. He cried to be saved from death in the garden for the simple reason the devil came to kill Him in the garden. The devil never wanted the Lord Jesus to go to the cross. And if you study the Gospels, you'll find and count them, always count things in the Bible, count the many times they tried to kill Jesus.

When He was a babe, they tried to kill Him. Herod sent the soldiers to kill Him. When He preached His first sermon, first time He preached in the synagogue of Nazareth, they seized Him and took Him to the precipice in which the city was built and tried to hurl Him over and kill Him.

Because the devil never wanted them to get to Calvary. So the devil tried to kill Him in the garden. And the Lord Jesus Christ prayed to be saved from death in the garden. And what happened? He was hurt in that He feared.

And God didn't allow the devil to kill Him in the garden. Tell me, how do you win the battle with the devil? There's only one thing that can conquer the devil. Do you know what it is? They overcame Him by the blood of the Lamb.

That's why the blood of Jesus was shed in the garden. Now you turn with me to verse 44 of Luke's Gospel, chapter 22. And you read there, "...and being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly, and as sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood falling down to the ground.".

But just a minute or two, look at the previous verse, "...and there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him.". But the angel couldn't drive off the devil. It doesn't say the angel appeared and drove off the devil.

There's only one power that can drive off the devil. And I'll tell you what that power is. The blood of the Lamb. So in the garden, from the veins of Jesus, there was the opening of those veins, and the blood from those veins was pressed through the pores of the body of the Son of God.

It wasn't pinpricks of blood that was shed in the garden. Look at it. Great drops of blood. Now get this clear. Look where they fell. It doesn't say they fell down His body. Every part of Scripture. They fell to the ground.

What is the ground? The ground is the devil's right of way. When Adam fell, God said, Cursed be the ground. The devil has a hold upon us, for he is a right of way on the ground. But once the blood touched the ground, the devil's right of way was smashed, and Christ's prayer for safety was heard of the Father.

They overcame Him by the blood of the Lamb. But let me tell you something. In 1 John, He came not by blood only, but by water and blood. And so there was not only blood swept in Gethsemane, but thank God there was the Savior saw Him not by blood only, but He came by water and by blood.

When I go to Calvary, Christ has died. May the Lord bless our meditation, and may the Lord use it to His glory, and may we continue to worship Him whom all the angels of God worship. Father Gingrey, have we the Rock of Ages planned for me?

I wonder could we have that as the final hymn?