The Tears of God — Edgar Reich

Father, we just thank you so much for you, our great and incredible God. We thank you for your mercy, for your love, for your kindness, for the Lord Jesus, whom you sent that we might have life for the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us.

And now, Father, you have already provided the bread of life. You have provided that loaf of bread. You already have broken it down, Lord. And now I am to serve it, Father, to pass it out. Help me to do that, Lord.

And then let every person be filled this morning, that there might be an overflow of your goodness and mercy through each person's life, that you might be seen and heard through them. For we ask all of these things in Christ's name.

Amen. Your pastor has told me so much about you, how wonderful you are and what a good church you are. And so I don't quite understand why God has given me this message. But perhaps there is one or two people here that need to hear about the tears of God and that there will be judgment.

God Weeps Over His People

And I ask you to turn to Jeremiah, chapter 14, please. Verse 17, Jeremiah, chapter 14, verse 17. And I'm going to read from a new King James Version, which may have one or two words differently, and then I'll read the same verse from the Living Bible.

Jeremiah, chapter 14, verse 17. Therefore, you shall say this word to them, let my eyes flow with tears, night and day, let them not cease, for the virgin daughter of my people has been broken with a mighty stroke.

And the same verse from the Living Bible says, night and day, my eyes shall overflow with tears. And this is God speaking. I cannot stop my crying for my people have been run through with a sword and lie mortally wounded on the ground.

These words were spoken by God through the prophet Jeremiah, and he speaks about his tears. This verse and other verses in the Bible teach us that God, the father also weeps. God has announced judgment on his children, but he says he will weep for them.

We are made in the image of God. The emotions we have are also the emotions the father has because we are made in his image. Our emotions are tainted with sin. All of his emotions are pure. Psalm tells us that he laughs.

The prophet Zephaniah tells us that God will sing over you when he's pleased and when he's happy, he's going to sing and mention your name as he sings over you. And then it also tells us that he will be jealous when we turn to other gods in our lives, when we put other things before God, he's a jealous God.

And he does not want to share your love with anybody except he wants all of you. He loves you. He wants you for himself and he's made you for himself. And so he has a right to expect that. And he has emotions of love and joy.

And he also grieves and sheds tears. The Holy Spirit is grieved when we sin. Now, grieving includes emotional distress. When you think about grieving for someone that you have lost, you weep, you feel sorry, you feel sorrow.

Tears will come this morning. And so does God mourn and weep over us? Scripture says yes. And the above verse from Jeremiah 14, 17 says he will shed tears night and day if we don't follow his ways. And so I'd like us to find out why he's weeping and what is happening here to the children of Israel from Jeremiah chapter 14.

Jeremiah 14 and Judgment for Rebellion

And we're going to read verses one through to 17. We had just read 17. That tells us that he's weeping. But now in the first part, he tells us what is happening. And I'm going to read from the Living Bible because it's a little easier for the young people to follow rather than the old King James English.

So if you don't mind, you can follow in your King James version. But I will read from the Living Bible. This message came from the Lord. And that's verse one in Jeremiah 14. This message came from the Lord explaining why he was holding back the rain.

Judah mourns. Business has ground to a halt. All the people prostrate themselves to the earth. And a great cry rises from Jerusalem. The nobles send servants for water from the wells. But the wells are dry.

The servants return baffled and desperate and cover their heads in grief. The ground is dry. The wells are dry. The ground is porridged and cracked for the lack of rain. The farmers are afraid. The deer desserts have fawned because there is no grass.

The wild donkey stands upon the bare hills, panting like thirsty jackals. They strain their eyes looking for grass to eat. But there's none to be found. Now men try to repent, but it is too late. Oh, Lord, we have sinned against you grievously.

They cry, yet help us for the sake of your own reputation. Oh, hope of Israel. Our savior in times of trouble. Why are you a stranger to us? As one passing through the land who is merely stopping for the night.

Are you also baffled? Are you help us to save us? Oh, Lord, you're right here among us and we carry your name. We are known as your people. Oh, Lord, don't desert us. But the Lord replies, this is God speaking.

You have loved to wander far from me and have not tried to follow my path. Now I will no longer accept you as my people. Now I will remember all the evil you have done and punish your sins. Jeremiah now states, the Lord told me again, don't ask me anymore to bless these people.

Don't pray for them. Don't don't come to me to ask me anymore to bless these people when they fast. I will not pay any attention when they present their offerings and sacrifices to me. I will not accept them.

What I will give them in return is war, famine and disease. Then I said, oh, Lord God, their prophets are telling them all this. Well, that no war or famine will come. They tell the people you will surely send them peace, that you will bless them.

Then the Lord said the prophets are telling lies in my name. I didn't send them or tell them to speak or to give this message. They prophesy of visions and revelations they have never seen or heard. They speak foolishness concocted out of their own foolish hearts.

Therefore, the Lord says I will punish these lying prophets who have spoken in my name, though I did not send them who say no war shall come nor famine by war and famine. They themselves shall die. And the people to whom they prophesy their bodies shall be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem, victims of famine and war, there shall be no one to bury them.

Husbands, wives, sons and daughters, all will be gone for I will pour out terrible punishment upon them for their sins. Therefore, tell them this night and day, my eyes shall overflow with tears. I cannot stop my crying for my people have been run through with a sword and lie mortally wounded on the ground.

This is one of the saddest scriptures for me in scripture, you know, apart from going to the book of Revelation and not being found in the book of life and having to go to hell eternally. Here, God says, I'm going to cry for you night and day, but I'm going to pass judgment.

I love you, but you've gone too far. You've gone too far. God said it was too late for them to repent. He would let judgment come. And then King Nebuchadnezzar from Babylon was on his way to overthrow Judah and to kill most of the Jews and to bring a remnant to Babylon for 70 years.

God's weeping for his people occurred five hundred and ninety seven years before the birth of Christ. And then from five hundred and eighty eight before Christ to five hundred and eighty six before Christ, when the Babylonian army invaded Judah under the leadership of King Nebuchadnezzar, Jerusalem was under a terrible siege.

A siege is when the city is surrounded and there's soldiers on every side. You cannot get food in and out of the city. And they were starving. The two point five year siege began in January five hundred and eighty nine B .C. and lasted for 30 months.

The prophet Jeremiah reports what happened in Lamentations two verse twenty one, if you wanted to refer to that Lamentations two twenty one. And here he's saying, see them lying in the streets, old and young boys and girls killed by the enemy sword.

Then in Lamentations, and if you want to refer to chapter four, verses eight, nine and ten, Lamentations four, eight, nine and ten, he said, but now their faces are as black as soot. No one can recognize them.

The skin sticks to their bones. It is dried and hard and withered. Those killed by the sword are far better off than those who die of slow starvation. Tenderhearted women have cooked and eaten their own children.

Thus, they survived the siege. Fearsome words about a God who gave us a way of salvation. And we say we don't believe it. We want our own way. We have a way we can do it through works. We can do it through other means.

And this same God says, I will weep for you, but I will judge you. I will weep for you. I will shed tears night and day. But I will judge you if you don't turn. And you see in this verse, in Jeremiah 19, verse nine, going back to the book of Jeremiah, it tells us that God did it.

God did it, not Satan, not the world, not King Nebuchadnezzar, but God did it. And it says in Jeremiah 19, nine, God said in that verse, I will see to it that your enemies lay siege to the city until all food is gone.

And those trapped inside begin to eat their own children and friends. Beloved, this is a fearsome, fearsome word because God is not mocked. You see, in Lamentations 220, Jeremiah confirms again what actually happened.

He said to God, should the women eat their offspring, the children they have cuddled? You see, God had given many, many warnings to the children of Israel. And he said in Leviticus 26 to 20, 26, 27, 28 and 29.

He told them, if you still won't listen to me or obey me, and that goes for adults. We don't want to be obedient to God. We think we have a right to decide on our own how we follow God. And he says, no, you do it my way.

And then if we don't, he said, if you still won't listen to me or obey me, then I will let loose my great anger and send you seven times greater punishment for your sins. You shall eat your own sons and daughters.

That's what God said in Leviticus. That was his warning to us. Now, you might say, preacher, I don't agree with you. My God is a God of love. And that's what other preachers tell me. I rather believe them than what you tell me.

I'll tell you, God is a God of love. An incredible God of love. And we'll go to some of the verses later on to see that he truly is a God of love. But he says that he has created us and that he has sent his son, Jesus, that we might have life and have it more abundantly.

And so because he has sent his son and given his son, that is the way to be right with him. God has been incredibly patient and kind. And, you know, when we sin, when we sin, God doesn't strike us dead.

So we don't fear him. You know, and so we say, well, he lets me get away again and again and again. The problem is when we don't know when we reach the point of no return. And beloved, I am fearful for the nation of America.

I'm fearful for the nation of Canada. And I'm wondering if we have reached the point of no return. He's a just God. He's a loving God. But he says he will judge sin and unbelief. And so God said to the people, you know, you believe these preachers today.

False Prophets and the Call to Obedience

I hear some preachers in Paterson, in New Jersey, and I just scratched my head, you know. And they say, God will bless you. You demand his blessings and he will bless you. And that's all you have to do.

And so they preach no holiness of life. They preach that you can have your own way and that God is a good God. Nothing will happen. And they demand blessings from God, but they do not help the people to understand that God requires obedience to his word, because this is our manual of life.

This tells us what we ought to do and what we not ought to do and that there is a price to pay. And so God requires obedience to his word. He requires repentance and faith and holiness of life. He wants us to deny those things that hurt us because sin hurts us.

See, God doesn't do it selfishly because he knows that sin will hurt us. So Matthew Henry says in his commentary, the Lord calls the Jews this people and not his people. They had forsaken his service.

Therefore, he would punish them according to their sins. He forbade Jeremiah to plead for them. The false prophets were the most criminal. But the Lord also pronounces condemnation on the people who loved to hear that word.

They were not to escape judgment. False teachers encouraged men to expect peace and salvation without repentance, without faith, without conversion, without holiness of life. But those who believe a lie must then not plead to God for an excuse.

And you can't. Have we gone to foreign America? Must judgment come from God? Are disasters our only chance to be drawn back to God? God says, I will weep for you, but you will experience judgment if you don't turn from your sins.

God will weep as his creation is punished and even destroyed. God will send us judgments, not only as retribution, but also with the hope that we might return to him. Another example of this is in Genesis chapter six, verse six, Genesis six, six.

God was grieved that he had made man. Grieving means sorrow and tears. God was weeping for his creation. He loved them. He loved that he had created them. But now he was facing the problem that people had become evil continually.

Scripture says they wouldn't turn from their sins. They wouldn't repent. They wouldn't follow God. And now he was facing the problem. What to do? Sin was so rampant that there was no hope of rectifying it.

And God decided to destroy all on the earth except one family, the family of Noah. And God caused it to rain 40 days and 40 nights. In Genesis chapter seven, verse 20, the waters covered the earth above the highest mountain by 22 feet, the highest mountain on the earth.

The highest mountain then was Mount Everest, perhaps in the Himalayas, and the highest mountain is 29 ,035 feet. So if the height of the water on the earth was 22 feet above the highest point. Then the earth was covered with water up to 29 ,057 feet.

I was flying with an airplane from Houston to come here. We were flying at 23 ,000 feet high, and there was a lot of distance between the airplane and the earth. And, you know, and that was all covered by water because God said I had enough.

I'm not going to put up with you anymore. That's the end. And you see, the question is, have you got an arc when destruction and judgment will come? Have you got an arc? Are you right with God? God is not mocked.

We think we get away with things because God does not judge us right away when we sin. And so we have to think about this within ourselves. We have to ask God, what is truth? We have to ask God to lead us because scripture also says that my God is love and perfect love casts out fear.

But in the New Testament, Jude reminds us that this scripture is not to be misinterpreted and misused. When you sin, you better fear God. OK, have you got perfect love? See, it says perfect love casts out fear.

And there's only one perfect love, and that is in the Lord Jesus Christ. So you see, he's the answer for you and for me. And so in the New Testament, Jude reminds us that false teachers had crept into the church.

They were teaching false doctrines. He warned the Christians of the consequences even in the New Testament times. And God is the same today, yesterday and forever. Now, Jude is the last book before Revelation.

Jude, Unbelief, and the Danger of Judgment

So if you turn to Jude 5, Jude verse 5, he said, and this is New Testament times during the period of grace, during the period of grace of God, he said, I want to remind you, though you once knew this, that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt afterwards, destroyed those who did not believe.

You see, unbelief is a great sin. Jude reminds us that God brought 600 ,000 men out of Egypt. That number is given to us in Exodus 12, 37. So there were 600 ,000 men plus women, plus children. There was likely an equal number of women coming out of Egypt.

So we would have had 600 ,000 men and 600 ,000 grown women besides the children and besides some of the Egyptians that followed them. And they came to the Red Sea. And I'm wondering how many people went through the Red Sea and God saved them.

Does anyone know? It was really all. God saved all of them to go through the Red Sea, to cross through the Red Sea. Now, when they came to the promised land and they had sent some spies into the land and there were only two spies that came back and said, we need to do what God tells us to do.

The others said no. Now, what happened? I wonder how many of those 1 .2 million people saw the promised land. Do you remember? Two. That's right. It was two. Joshua and Caleb were the only two that would see the promised land.

So 1 ,199 ,998 people died. Why did they die? Because of unbelief, because of unbelief that there was a God. When he gives you a promise, you better do what he promises you to do, because unbelief will separate you from God.

Unbelief will prevent you from experiencing that which God has for you in store. And then Jude, verse seven, he says, as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them in a similar manner to these having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

Who did that? God did, didn't he? Or is there another way to explain this? There's no other way to explain it, you see. And so God is a God of consuming fire. He cannot and he will not tolerate sin. He cannot compromise with sin.

He will not accept sin. And also in the New Testament, we find tears and judgment. In Luke, 1941, Jesus came to the city of Jerusalem and he wept. The Son of God wept because he saw ahead 37 years after he was crucified in 70 A .D.

Roman legions under the leadership of Titus surrounded the city of Jerusalem and destroyed the city and the temple. And according to the historian Josephus, one point one million Jews died because of their unbelief in Christ.

Judgment is also part of our future. If I may speak about the book of Revelation for a moment, the apocalypse reveals to us the hidden secrets of God. It is.