Let us read together from the
Holy Word of God. Again, the reading is on your
hymn sheets, it's on the front page this time, and we're reading
from Revelation chapter 21 and the first eight verses. Revelation
chapter 21, the first eight verses. And I saw a new heaven and a
new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed
away, and there was no more sea. And I, John, saw the holy city,
New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as
a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out
of heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men,
and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people,
and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God, and God
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be
no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, Neither shall there
be any more pain, for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne
said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write,
for these words are true and faithful. And he said unto me,
It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning
and the end. I will give unto him that is
athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that
overcometh shall inherit all things, and I will be his God,
and he shall be my Son. But the fearful and unbelieving
and the abominable and murderers and whoremongers And sorcerers
and idolaters and all liars shall have their part in the lake which
burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. Thus far, the reading of God's
holy word. The word that I desire to speak
to you on is on, again, at the top of your sheet, in verse 4. And God shall wipe away all tears
from their eyes, and there shall be no more death. And the verse continues on, neither
sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the
former things are passed away." And it is in the context of having
lost your dear sister in faith, Ruth Page, your auntie, Last
Lord's Day, her gain is our loss, but her gain should be the meditation
of our souls and our comfort and our help at such times as
this. We feel very much for you in
the home there, especially dear Ruth Thorpe, we feel much for
you. Ruth Page was a dear friend, a dear sister to you. provided
by the Lord and we do pray much for you the Lord provide another
such companion but for you each there you have those that you
have walked with many of you have had a husband or wife also
and then you've had those in the home that God has given you
and we do bless the Lord for those he has given us to walk
with here below, and one day we shall again walk with them
in heaven above. It's a blessed prospect, and
may we be encouraged and renewed in thinking of that. Well, I
want to, with the Lord's help, bring before you this verse here,
verse 4. It brings a great contrast to
what we have here and what those in heaven now are enjoying. We have in verse 3 the great
voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with
men. He will dwell with them, and
they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them
and be their God. The very blessing of the presence
of God and God's presence with his people, that is what makes
heaven that God himself is with them and in our text it speaks
of what God shall do and it relates to these former things a contrast
when these things are all passed away, it shall be that God shall
do this, he shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. And I want to look with the Lord's
help this morning at four ways in which the Tears are wiped
away from our eyes in heaven, and those four ways are set before
us in this very text. I'll mention you to them first,
and then we will go through them in more detail. The first one
is the tears over the death of loved ones. Our text says, and
there shall be no more death. The tears that are from that
of death are wiped away. then there are tears for godly
sorrow for sin neither sorrow and then we have thirdly nor
crying crying to the lord The same as our Lord did with strong
crying and tears. Then we have of pain, neither
shall there be any more pain. Those tears of pain under chastening
and other ways as well. So we have in the first part
of this text, God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. All tears. Where do those tears
come from? And in the rest of the verse
it tells us what is the source and cause of those tears here
below, that there shall be no more tears for these things. The first one, then, is that
there shall be no more death. No doubt there have been those
of you that have shed many tears over the death, over the passing
of those who have been taken from us. We feel it, it's right
to feel it. Sometimes the blessing of the
realization of what they have entered into takes away those
tears and we don't actually shed the tears but we feel it very
much within. But many times there are tears
and we think of the great mourning when Jacob died We think of how
even the Egyptians, they noticed how great the mourning, the sorrow
was. And yet there was a very real
hope, of course, with their Jacob. And we think of those in our
Lord's time. that so demonstrated their sorrow,
their loss. We think of Lazarus' passing
as well, and the coming passing of our Lord, you now therefore
have sorrow. Those as his dear mother and
the dear disciples, they saw him truly die and taken from
them in such a cruel and a wicked way. And so those tears of death
where we must all die, we must be parted from our loved ones,
we must be taken from this earthly scene, and all the tears that
are associated with that. God shall wipe away all tears,
those tears relating to death and the separation that that
causes. And we may say also that all
of the things that are associated with death and build up to death. But there's another aspect that
I want to just briefly mention And that is where it says there
shall be no more death. Here below we are born in sin,
shapen in iniquity, we are dead in trespasses and sins. Many of us have loved ones that
are near and dear to us, that we know are yet dead in trespasses
and sins, and to be brought where there is no more death. Here
below we live and we look upon many, and we know that they are
heading to an eternity of separation from God, an eternity of woe,
and that will cause those who know what that means a real pain,
a longing and praying for them, but here in heaven they are all
redeemed, they are all saved, there's none spiritual dead,
they are all alive, they are all quickened, they're not a
mixture of those that are dead and those that are spiritually
alive. In heaven there shall be no more
death, and the sorrows that you may have, and the tears that
you may have cried over children, over loved ones, over parents,
over those who have no fear of God or no concern in their souls,
God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. There shall
not be in heaven a reflection of those that have not been saved,
there shall be nothing that shall be a cause of sorrow or a grief
there. We don't know how that could
be but we know it shall be because God shall wipe away not some
but all tears and the first source of those tears there shall be
no more death. Then there shall be neither any
sorrow. And Paul, when he writes to the
Corinthians, he speaks of them whom he had reproved for sin,
and they had fallen under that reproof in chapter 7 of the 2nd
epistle to them. And he says this, that, for though
I made you sorry with a letter, I do not repent, though I did
repent, for I perceive that the same epistle hath made you sorry,
though it were but for a season. Now I rejoice, not that ye were
made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance. For ye were made
sorry after a godly manner, that ye may receive damage for us
in nothing. For godly sorrow worketh repentance
to salvation, not to be repented of. For the sorrow of the world
worketh death." Well, I trust there are those amongst us that
have really sorrowed over our sins. We've mourned for them.
We have shed many tears because of those things that we've done
and said. We think of dear Peter when he
had denied his Lord those three times. He went out and he wept
bitterly. Well, dear Peter in heaven now,
does not weep tears because of his denials of his Lord. And
you and I, when brought to heaven, will not then look back and weep
over the many things that we have sinned and done here below. God shall wipe away those tears. Those tears belong here that
are as a godly sorrow. Then we have the crying. nor crying, no crying. Well, it is said of our Lord
Jesus Christ in Hebrews chapter 5 and verse 7, who in the days
of his flesh had offered up prayers and supplications with strong
crying and tears and to him that was able to save him from death
was heard in that he feared. And so we have this picture of
our Lord and it is that which is reflected in his dear people
too, crying unto the Lord, crying for mercy, crying to be delivered
from death, calling upon the Lord with many tears and many
supplications. Our dear Lord walked that way,
and there may be those things that you have cried to the Lord
for, begged of Him, pleaded with Him, wrestled with Him with many
tears. And especially with this, to
be saved from death, to be kept alive in our souls, that others
might be blessed as well with that spiritual life. So tears that are associated
with crying unto the Lord. And then there are those tears
of pain. Neither shall there be any more
pain. Now, we think of that in a literal
way, and no doubt many of you, maybe this last night, have had
pain throughout the night. We know what that is. And to
have pain in our bodies, and to have it constantly, a wearing
pain, And it is a blessed prospect that there shall be no more pain
in that way. But we think of what is said
in Isaiah 26 and verses from 16 concerning the church of God, and what they
had, they poured out their prayer, when thy chastening was upon
them. Like as a woman with child that
draweth near, the time of her delivery is in pain, and cried
out in her pangs, so have we been in thy sight, O Lord. We have been in pain. We read of the Church of God
that as soon as Zion prevailed, she brought forth her children.
There's pain on that account. There's pain on the chastening
of the Lord. over us on that account as well. Now no chastening for the present
seemeth to be joyous but grievous, nevertheless afterward it yieldeth
the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby."
And so there is a pain in that sense. There is a pain in the
sense that Paul writes to the Romans and he says, the whole
creation groaneth in pain together until now. Why? That there might
be a putting off of the curse, a putting off of this mortal
body, and a bringing in this new creation a celestial body
where there is no more sin and no more pain. And so this verse
here, God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, it is
a very much encompassing word that then is described how God
and in what aspects God will wipe away these tears. May this word be a help to you
at this time, a help to us as well, and we have that blessed
prospect before us. We may say of this, if you and
I know what it is in this former things, these things we're walking
through now, to have these tears in these several ways as we've
had set before us this morning, then we have a sweet token that
we shall enter into this blessing. and those very things that we've
had here, that they shall be wiped away by God. A solemn condition,
those that are described in verse 8 of this passage, really those
who've had no tears concerning spiritual death, they've never
sorrowed for sin, they've never cried unto the Lord, they've
never been in pain for souls or in pain, for that new creation,
then those shall never, or they wouldn't value it, would they?
Such a blessing that God shall wipe these tears away because
they've never had those tears. And so there is an implied blessing
to those who walk this path now, then in after death, and when
the Lord is pleased to bring us to Himself and He be with
us, that this shall be the blessing the Lord blesses us with. May
the Lord bless this word, give you further meditation upon it
today.