Let’s Try Tears

i want to read to you from two passages in the old testament the first two kings chapter 20 verse 5 the word of god through isaiah to hezekiah i've heard your prayer i have seen your tears and then these words from the psalm psalm 126 those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy he who goes out weeping bearing the seed for sowing shall come home with shouts of joy bringing his sheaves with him if you want a subject for this word i would call it try tears let's try tears if you ask why is this important well the bottom line for some reason tears get god's attention and we've never lived in a time certainly in my lifetime when we have needed more than ever to get god's attention you've got that word in isaiah chapter 58 where they cried out lord why is it we fast and you don't even seem to notice you see one of the reasons for fasting by the way you're wanting to get god's attention it's when he seems like he's asleep he's certainly hiding his face and we as i said are in a time we need to hear from god we need to get his attention and i happen to believe that i've got a word that will be a way forward that will get god's attention because what we need not new ideas clever ideas we need something that will so stir us that we can wait before god and plead with him and if i understand what i'm going to be preaching about to you today it's this tears literal tears get god's attention well why else would this be important well maybe someone right now as i speak you are experiencing delayed answered prayer try tears do you sense that god has been hiding his face from you try tears are you in deep debt it could be i'm speaking to someone you're in financial trouble and there doesn't seem to be a way out try tears or are you praying for a lost loved one and somebody that you've wanted so much to come to the lord i can tell you you need god to work on that person because we are by nature born dead in trespasses and sins this is the way we're born we're born dead maybe you never thought of it like that but we are all born dead spiritually dead we need to be quickened and only god can take care of a person like that so if you're praying for someone in particular they need to be saved i'm saying try tears uh are you in a situation where at the present time if things get worse the consequences are just so horrible unthinkable maybe it's god's way of trying to get your attention you see we're trying to get his attention maybe he's trying to get your attention and when he gets your attention and you show it by tears it may be that god is at last succeeding with you are you praying for revival are you praying for the holy spirit to come down and you're pleading with the lord well i'm saying try tears well what causes tears pain simple as that pain crosses tears tears generally flow more from emotional pain than from physical pain but physical pain can cause tears you might like to know that there are some positive benefits from tears for one thing we're told that it has something to do with your own health for example tears helps to detoxify the body tears will dull pain and another thing about tears it will improve your mood sometimes when i've had to speak with someone in grief they've just lost a loved one and they're not crying and you think if only they would shed tears and and if you can get them just to let the tears flow they feel better so tears has has that effect and i would like to think that not that this sermon is going to cause you to cry but certainly because it is boring or anything like that but if i can implant a word that i think is based on scripture that will bring you a step closer to getting god's attention well what does the bible say about tears before i get into that specifically i don't know if you've ever heard of what used to be called i don't hear much about it anymore but years ago there was among bible colleges uh what they called the law of first mention now seminaries would laugh at that idea today most seminaries and maybe many bible colleges but there was a view many years ago law of first mention what that means is the first time a key word in scripture is mentioned the meaning it has then is seen throughout the bible and uh for example the first time you find the word tears in the bible is what i read to you from 2 kings chapter 20 verse 5. isaiah the prophet said to king hezekiah sorry your time is up it's over you're going to die well some might have just taken that word and and said okay what else to be will be but hezekiah didn't have that reaction he set his face to the wall and started to talk to god and he started weeping and the same isaiah came back and said well i've got good news here is what the lord just says i've heard your voice i have seen your tears well that's the first time you find the word tears in the bible and the idea being that tears gets god's attention you might like to know the last time you find the word tears the last time in the bible it's in revelation chapter 21 verse 5 where god says that i will wipe away all tears from your eyes so there'll be tears on earth coming from pain there will be no tears in heaven god shall wipe away all tears from the eyes there'll be no crying no pain for the former things are passed away well uh we're told also in two kings chapter 22 verse 19 king josiah who was a good king like hezekiah we find these words you wept before me i heard you think about that you wept before me i heard you said the lord the hebrew word for hearing to hear i heard you is the hebrew word shamar every jew knows what is known as the shema hear o israel the lord our god is one lord well the word shamar in the hebrew means to hear but it also means to obey perhaps if you've got a child you've said to your child did you hear me well the idea is they must not have heard you because they're not doing what you told them to do well when god hears us in the shema he breaks sense of the word it means he has heard us and will obey our request well tears will have this kind of effect on god so as it is put god said to josiah i'll give you the verse again 2 kings 22 19 you wept before me i heard you so there are two ways i might say to make sure you are being heard from god one is if you pray in his will the other is try tears in 1 john 5 14 john says if we ask anything according to his will he hears us that means that god will obey our request the best word you can ever hear from god it doesn't get better than this to know that he's heard you well you say surely god who knows everything he sees all you do he hears all you say surely he hears us but the hebraic idea is a very refined understanding it means that god has not only heard you but he's going to obey and according to one john 5 14 two things coalesce your tears and praying in his will now getting the will of god sometimes we know what is god's will and sometimes we think we know what is god's will god's will can be understood in two ways first the revealed will of god what is that that's the bible you could say the ten commandments uh god has revealed his will in scripture but then there's what we know as the secret will of god that means known only to him and you must see that what appears to be his will from our perspective may not be god's own will his ways are higher than our ways his thoughts higher than our thoughts god knows exactly what will happen the day after tomorrow that's his secret will you may think you know but he really knows he knows what will happen one year from now in every detail he knows the end from the beginning and therefore when you realize that's knowledge that is secret we can't delve into that the person praying for the right husband or wife his secret will should you take this invitation or do something else secret will so you've got to come to the place that though you don't know what it is you know that he knows and you actually bow to whatever that will is and say lord this is what i want but i will give up what i want and find out what you want you see there's a verse psalm 106 15 scary verse god granted their request but sent leanness to their soul a wasting disease so uh we've got to be careful if we persist in something that we want because it seems reasonable to us uh could i caution you about something there's a teaching that is spreading like wildfire goes something like this our duty is to change god's will wrong don't give that teaching any time at all it is false teaching that is not our duty it's not our duty to change god's will it's our duty to find out what his will is and do it and so when we don't know what his will is except that it's his way of causing us to turn to him to seek his face if every prayer which is automatically answered you just wouldn't need faith anymore and if you knew everything you wouldn't need faith and there are certain things god doesn't want us to know and if he doesn't want you to know it you're not going to know it until he reveals things so two things that will bring about answered prayer one is praying in his will and you might hit what his will is that is to say you might actually pray for something and it's actually god's will but it doesn't tell you it's the odd thing it may seem odd but that's just the way it is in fact when john said if we ask anything according to his will he hears us he added and if we know he hear us that's a big if big if if we know that he hears us why does he put it that way it's possible to pray in the will of god and not know it then sometimes he will let you know it uh i wish this happened to me every day i'm sorry but it doesn't happen to me every day there are times when when i pray for it i know right then god heard me there are other times when i pray for something i don't know if he's hurt me or not take the example when zechariah and elizabeth prayed for a son i presume this would be sometime after they got married it may be months years i don't know but they prayed for a son and they felt nothing and after a while that was a prayer request i guess they tore up and said god's not going to answer our prayer and then one day here comes the angel gabriel you read about luke chapter 1 says zechariah your prayer has been heard zechariah wanted to say prayer what prayer oh were you and listen prayed for a son well yeah that was a long time ago well your prayer has been heard here's the thing when they prayed that prayer god in heaven said yes because it was god's will but he didn't tell zachariah that he didn't tell elizabeth that it comes as a big surprise that's why in 1 john 5 14 if we pray in his will he hears us but you may not know you've done it if you know that he hears this good you know you've got it well zechariah didn't know he was heard and then here comes gabriel to tell him he has been heard so it's important to know don't try to change god's will that is wrong it is false teaching but find out what it is if you don't get it understand he knows best i'll tell you how you can know that because psalm 84 verse 11. no good thing will he withhold from them that woke up rightly and so understand that he will give it to you if it's what he knows is best for you well so the way to get your prayer answered you pray in god's will but there's this other thing and we don't understand why it is but all i know is it's a teaching in scripture tears seem to work they do and so god said to hezekiah i've heard your prayer i've seen your tears and by the way hezekiah was given another 15 years to live first isaiah the prophet said your time is up hezekiah says god please isaiah has to come back and say oh you're going to live 15 more years this is a good thing about isaiah by the way you know there's some prophetic people they don't want to change their minds when they give a word this is it this is it isaiah said this is it but then hezekiah prayed and isaiah has to come back and say good news god says now you're going to live for another five years what i'm saying to you when nothing else seems to work try tears so i'll tell you something another evidence that god notices tears jesus was in a little town called nain n-a-i-n i went there one day when i was in israel out of my way to the little town of nain i mean it's just a small village it was a small village then it's a small village now and while jesus was teaching he noticed that somebody is in a funeral and sees a widow with her only son in a coffin and the widow is sobbing her heart out as they're going to bury her only son jesus stopped what he was doing and walked over to that lady you know what he said to her don't cry don't cry you see tears got jesus attention she couldn't have known that the lord was watching her and i just want to say to anybody right now if you are weeping and you are crying and you are in tears and you may think nobody's watching and nobody cares jesus he notices tears jesus the son of god never forget there's a verse john 5 19. jesus said the son can do nothing of himself and what he sees the father do what the father does jesus does and so it was the father who saw the widow's tears as she was going to bury her only son but jesus is god in the flesh he said he that has seen me has seen the father so we're talking about the godhead the father the son the holy spirit the trinity god notices our tears well you know what it is to have lost a loved one jesus sees you you know what it is when you have severe disappointment nothing's going right and you just start to cry jesus notices that's the good news and you feel like you're all alone hebrews chapter 5 verse says that at the right hand of god is jesus our great high priest he's different from the high priests in israel's day because the high priest just a man who wanted to do everything perfectly right liturgically doctorally he had no real feelings for the people no he was more interested in carrying out the letter of the law but hebrews 4 15 says that this high priest is different jesus he's actually touched with the feeling of our weaknesses most people aren't going to be very sympathetic with you if you have a weakness if it's a legalistic christian you're around and you admit to a fault or a weakness it might say to you well you shouldn't have that you shouldn't have that well you just say well all i know is i have this weakness jesus rather than being turned off is turned on we're told he's touched and there's nobody like jesus he was tempted at all points the very things that may not tempt you but tempt somebody else or test you but doesn't test anybody else you don't get into their skin at all but because jesus was tempted tested the greek word just means put to a test it can be all kinds of temptation or trial but jesus had every kind you can imagine and even though he is now at the right hand of god he's never forgotten what it was like so that when you feel deeply he feels it too never will forget something happened many years ago my mother died when i was only 17 years old and we were at the funeral home never forget it at the funeral home friends came to uh view my mother's body and came to say we're praying for you were sorry and they would say to me i'm a 17 year old lost his mother and people would say i'm praying for you but then they were also going by my father's where he was seated and he stayed seated as people would come by and say mr we're praying for you and all of a sudden i saw my father stand up people all thought why did he just stand he saw a man coming in the door who two weeks before had lost his wife and my dad said here's a man who can sympathize with me and they hugged each other in the center of the room because that other man knew what my dad was going through well you may not find anybody who can understand what you are going through but jesus does and so as he saw that widow crying he just stopped what he was doing and went over to her and said don't cry i'm telling you tears get god's attention you can also put it like this that when we weep jesus does too uh you know the story perhaps uh mary and martha who were close friends of jesus uh they sent word to jesus that their brother lazarus who jesus was also a close friend to had become very very ill but why did they send that word to jesus he was several miles away some would say 100 miles away i don't know how far away he was but they knew they thought they did that if they got the word to jesus jesus would stop lazarus from dying he could do it he could do it by remote control or he could just make his way to bethany and go right to lazarus sick bed and heal him you know what jesus showed up four days after the funeral and you know the disciples were surprised at him he said how come you're not going to heal your friend lazarus and you know what he said it's a very important verse john 11 15. never forget as long as i live i wish this happened to me often that i get an insight in the pulpit and but i did that day i was preaching on john chapter 11 which as it happens was in my own reading today that's a coincidence i followed the robert murray mcshane plan and reading john 11 i was reminded of that time when i was at westminster chapel and just reading john 11 15 gave me an insight a theological insight that was totally new to me it's simple but it was new to me then jesus said i'm glad for your sakes that i didn't go and heal lazarus in order that you might believe what did he mean by that well what increases our faith and what makes faith a possibility is when god doesn't do what we think he's going to do when he just does things we don't understand why is there suffering in the world why this coronavirus crisis why so many people dying it's it's awful why does god permit it why does he allow it by the way by the way he certainly did allow it i can tell you now he's the architect of the whole thing he's right in the middle of it because i believe that coven 19 as it's called coronavirus is god's loving way of trying to get our attention that is what i believe i would go to the state for that belief don't think that this came without god's permission where he's somehow panicking heaven or how could this happen no god is sovereign he's all-powerful he's all-knowing and understand this he's got a purpose in all that he does and so jesus said i didn't go heal lazarus they thought he would didn't make sense he could have healed him he said in order that you might believe and we're all being put through to this test well here's what happens jesus shows up four days after the funeral and one by one first mary and no first martha and then mary said lord if you had been here our brother wouldn't have died as if to blame jesus yeah that's what they were doing i see you should have come you could have healed him if you'd been here i brother wouldn't have died martha said the same thing both of them are crying and we find at that moment the shortest verse in the bible john 11 35 jesus wept why did he weep he felt what they were going through he felt what they were feeling and here's the interesting thing he knew what he was going to do a few minutes later that's that's what he knew when he first said i've done this so that you might believe do you know what even though jesus knew that in a few minutes he was going to raise lazarus from the dead he still wept with him that's the way god is he weeps with us in the moment of course he knows how it's going to be a week from now of course he knows the end from the beginning but the amazing thing about god he knows we don't know and it's amazing he just stoops to our weakness and so jesus just wept with him just went in in fed of rebuking them he didn't say come on girls be quiet i'm going to raise him from the dead if you just shut up no no no no they wept he wept and then he just showed that from the beginning he reckoned that raising lazarus from the dead was a better idea than keeping him from dying so it is with anything that is god's will anything his will is better than anything that you could come up with you think you should change god's will as if your idea is better that you're smarter than god god knows what he's doing he's the all-wise god he loves each one of us as if there were no one else to love and he's got a plan well when we weep jesus weeps and he did what he did on purpose we're told another thing that jesus actually wept over the city of jerusalem yes you could say it broke his heart now this is a mystery i don't understand it but i'm just telling what the bible says he wept he said all the things that belong to you you are the ones that should have this you are the ones that prayed for messiah and now i've come and you don't want me and he wept he wept and it was a changing moment for all history and as a result of this the jews rejected jesus but then the gentiles accepted him and there's a purpose in everything that jesus does well he wept over the city of jerusalem that lets you know just as john 5 19 the son can do nothing of himself but what he sees the father do strange as it may seem to us even god wept when jesus wept because he knew what was going to happen to israel he knew but you know this god has a plan for you don't try to figure god out don't think that you were going to have such superior knowledge of almighty god that you know this happened for this or that we don't know everything some things just you're not supposed to know but god's got a purpose in it well we know this even though jesus wept over the city of jerusalem and it was a part of his plan yeah that's true too strange as it may seem that too is a part of his plan it says in ezekiel chapter 33 verse 11 i take no pleasure in the death of the wicked and one reason is because death is not the end death is not the end by the way never forget this hebrews 9 27 as it is appointed the man wants to die after death the judgment and you need to know this death is not the end death opens up the future that begins in eternity that has no end and after death the judgment well at the end of every life heaven or hell heaven or hell now that's the clear teaching of the bible if you're not prepared to stand by scripture it's not likely that you're going to come to tears to want to see lost people saved or to see things turn around in the church when there's so much theological liberalism when people no longer preach the virgin birth of jesus or the blood of jesus satisfying god's justice the idea of heaven and hell it's just not being taught nowadays i mentioned robert murray mcshane while ago that was not in my notes to say because i just happened to follow his bible-reading plan which today happened to be john 11 among other scriptures but i do have in my notes that i wanted to bring up this story a fellow preacher went up to his friend robert mcshane and said i preached on hell sunday do you know what mcshane said did you weep you see there are those who want to preach on hell and there's no tears they just say people are going to go to hell unless you repent i'm telling you it's an awful thing for anybody to go to hell imagine somebody you love going to hell you don't want that you don't want that well i'll tell you another story about robert mcshane he saw revival in his church in dundee scotland in the 18th 19th century a few weeks after mcshane died a minister 30 miles away from dundee went to the church there hoping to meet somebody that would tell him a little bit about robert murray mcshane and it happened that an elder in the church was present and this preacher said tell me what was robert murray mcshane like tell me how i could preach like robert murray mcshane oh says the elder i can tell you really they went to mcshane's desk and the elders said here's the way you preach like mcshane put your elbows on the desk and bury your face in your hands and let the tears flow and then the elder said come with me he took him to mcshane's pulpit said you want to preach like mcshane i can tell you put your elbows on the pulpit bury your head and your hands and let the tears flow well that was mcshane he was known as the weeping pastor and it just happened this is a coincidence but i was invited to preach at mcchane's church about eight years ago and i'd heard that story and i actually laid my bible on mcshane's pulpit and what i'm going to say now i don't suggest everybody do this but i thought i wonder if god's got a verse for me i don't do this every day and i it it can lead to some difficulties but i'm just admitting i did it once and so i laid the bible on mcshane's pulpit and i opened it and it opened psalm 119 verse 136 and here's what it says my eyes shed streams of tears because people do not keep your law but my goodness it was almost a confirmation that that was the real mcshane that was his pulpit that's that's what made him and he saw revival in his day what we know is tears get results they work for hezekiah they worked for the dear woman weeping for her son they worked for josiah tears worked for robert mary mcshane and i can say this if you're wanting to see god work the thing about tears you can't work them up there's what is known as crocodile tears we're talking about when you are sufficiently burdened and you're sufficiently concerned that you're just begging god please to work believe me tears work tears get god's attention and so god said to hezekiah i've heard your voice i've seen your tears and then that verse that i read at the beginning psalm 126 verse 5 those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy well that's my word to you try tears heavenly father i ask that you apply this word by your holy spirit in jesus name amen

Channel: RT Kendall

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Id: VQp2lGG2jo0

Length: 39min 11sec (2351 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 25 2020