God Dries Our Tears

God Dries Our Tears

Excerpted from “No Tears in Heaven”

Sermon #643

Delivered on Sunday morning, August 6, 1865, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

For anyone who knows what it is to weep over sin or loss or pain, Heaven offers a beautiful promise: one day God himself will wipe the tears from our eyes. And even better, one day he will transform those tears into laughter.

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. Revelation 7:17

Spurgeon • 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 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 and 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 these 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 the apostle 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?

Alcorn • Revelation 21:4 also speaks of God dealing with his people’s tears: “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain” (NASB, emphasis added).

This includes the tears of suffering over sin and death; the tears of oppressed people; the cries of the poor, the widow, the orphaned, the unborn, and the persecuted. God will wipe away the tears of racial injustice. Such crying shall be no more.

Spurgeon says, “I am convinced that we endure more sorrow from our sins than from God’s darkest providence.” So true. God will indeed wipe away our tears, but he could not do so without first wiping away our sins.

But what about tears of joy in Heaven? Can you imagine joy flooding your eyes as you meet Christ and as you’re reunited with loved ones? Have you ever laughed so hard it brought tears to your eyes? I think Christ will laugh with us, and his wit and fun-loving nature will be our greatest source of endless laughter. Spurgeon writes, “I do believe, in my heart, that there may be as much holiness in a laugh as in a cry; and that sometimes, to laugh is the better of the two.”

Spurgeon speaks of life under the Curse: “We may forget to laugh, but we will always know how to weep.” But when God stops the weeping, surely he will replace it with laughter. Jesus said, “Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you. . . . Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven” (Luke 6:21-23, NIV).

That we will laugh in Heaven, then, is not a speculation; it is Christ’s explicit promise. Laughter is a reward for our present weeping. Anticipating the laughter to come, Jesus says we should “leap for joy” now. Can you imagine someone leaping for joy in utter silence, without laughter? Our present laughter serves as a foretaste of the great laughter that awaits us.

My wife, Nanci, loves pro football. She opens our home to family and friends for Sunday night games. If you were to come to our house, you’d hear cheers and groans, but the dominant sound in the room, week after week, is laughter. It’s the same with any group of rejoicing people. There may be hugging, backslapping, playful wrestling, singing, and storytelling. But always there is laughing. Laughter is God’s gift to humanity, a gift that will be raised to new levels after our bodily resurrection.

Spurgeon used his wit to provoke laughter in private and in public. He said in one of his sermons, “If by a laugh I can make men see the folly of an error better than in any other way, they shall laugh.”

Where did humor originate? Not with people, angels, or Satan. God created all good things, including good humor. If God didn’t have a sense of humor, we as his image bearers wouldn’t either. That he has a sense of humor is evident in his creation. Consider aardvarks and baboons. Take a good look at a giraffe. You have to smile, don’t you? God made us to laugh and to love to laugh. It’s therapeutic. The new universe will ring with laughter.

The only laughter that won’t have a place in Heaven is the sort that late-night comedians often engage in—laughter that mocks troubled people, makes light of human suffering, or glorifies immorality. Jesus makes a sobering comment in Luke 6:25 (NIV), in which he addresses not only Heaven but also Hell: “Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.” When will those who laugh now mourn and weep? In the afterlife.

All those who have not surrendered their lives to God, who exploit and ignore the needy, who ridicule the unfortunate, and who flout God’s standards of purity will have all eternity to mourn and weep. They will never laugh again.

One of Satan’s great lies is that God—and everything good—is joyless and humorless, while Satan—and evil—brings pleasure and satisfaction. In fact, it’s Satan who is humorless. Sin didn’t bring him joy; it forever stripped him of joy. In contrast, envision Jesus with his disciples. If we cannot picture him teasing them and laughing with them, we need to reevaluate our understanding of the Incarnation. We need a biblical theology of humor that prepares us for an eternity of celebration and spontaneous laughter.

As Spurgeon says, we may sometimes forget to laugh here, but there will be no end to the laughter when we find our fulfillment in the presence and the promises of our God. Cling to that blood-bought promise concerning our future in Heaven: we will laugh.