Lessons from the Hebrew Prophets (Part 2 of 5)

Weeping for the Lost

Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people! (Jeremiah 9:1)

God’s servants enter into the Lord’s work with their whole being. And so Jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet, being sent by God to announce judgment on Judah and the beginning of the period of captivity. Jeremiah wept for his people as he saw that the wrath of God was unavoidable because the people would not listen to God’s Word. This prophet saw the demise of a nation that had been called by God yet had turned from Him to serve the worthless idols of their pagan neighbors. This unfaithfulness was such a great tragedy that Jeremiah could not hold in his tears! The prophet was affected by what was going on in the lives of the people he had been sent to serve. Jeremiah took no pleasure in seeing the people turn from God, suffering the inevitable consequences of their sin. When the Lord sends people out into the world with the message of the Gospel, it is impossible for them not to be personally moved by the heartbreaking condition of our world. I would go so far to say that we are not ready to actually be the Lord’s ambassadors and carry the message of reconciliation until we have personally perceived and been moved by the profound needs of our world.

In other words, the messengers that God sends out into the world must feel what God feels and see the world in the way God sees it. Until we have the Father’s perspective, we cannot do His work. God cares and feels compassion for the spiritual condition of people. Perhaps we tend to think of God as too holy to have feelings. But you cannot read the Scriptures and conclude that God does not care. Even God’s anger shows that He is touched by the condition of humanity. I want to be careful here that I do not make God out to be like a man with all of the weaknesses of unpredictable or uncontrollable emotions. Yet at the very beginning of human history, when the whole world was filled with violence and wickedness, the Scriptures record that God was grieved in his heart (Genesis 6.6). The thought of God being grieved by human sin might be a new thought to some people who only think of God as some kind of spiritual mind without any feelings whatsoever. Others think that God’s only possible reaction to wickedness is wrath and anger. While the wrath of God cannot be ignored, God’s response to humanity’s fall has been rather complex. There are times when God gets angry. But anger is not the only thing God feels toward the human race. When God came into the world in Jesus Christ, we witnessed a wide range of emotions. Jesus also wept over Jerusalem, much like the prophet Jeremiah had done. Until we learn to weep over the sins of people and their unbelief, we do not have the heart of God or of Christ.

But let’s be very clear on this point: the wrath of God must eventually be revealed against unrepentant sinners. Yet, this situation does not give God pleasure. Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem, as did the prophet Jeremiah, because both saw that the wrath of God would eventually fall upon the people because of their stubborn unbelief. The Lord may express His wrath against sin, yet He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 33.11). I know that the idea of God’s wrath is to modern people one of the most objectionable of doctrines. Why would God choose to judge and destroy people? This is not a simple issue, but what many people fail to understand, perhaps even ignoring this reality, is that God is patient with sinners and He send them warnings and also gives them space to repent. But there are people who continually harden their hearts and refuse to listen to God. It is a lamentable condition to be spurning the grace and mercy of God so that all that is left is the wrath and judgment of the Lord! God is gracious, patient, and merciful. He is not looking for an excuse to condemn or destroy us. But God is also holy and just and cannot ignore wickedness forever. So while God’s first desire is to bless, He will also curse. Perhaps those parents who have had a rebellious and perhaps wicked child understand how God also feels about the human race. Parents want to do good things to their children, but they cannot, if they are good people who really care for the welfare of their offspring, ignore rebellious and wicked behavior. Parents may become angry at their rebellious children, yet their heart is filled with love and good intentions at all times. There is something similar in the heart of God for all of his rebellious offspring. Consider the kindness and the severity of God (Romans 11.22)! When we know these things about God, it will be impossible for us to take any kind of pleasure in the demise of wicked people, even if they are our personal enemies! We would rather see people repent and be saved and blessed by God. And we would do everything we can to bring about this repentance.

God’s people also feel great sorrow for those who remain alienated from God, or who have known God and turned away from Him. Just as Jeremiah and then Jesus wept over the people of God who had turned away from Him, the Apostle Paul also had sorrow over the unbelief of his Jewish brethren:

I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit—that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh” (Romans 9:1-3). 

Paul was actually saying that, if possible, he would suffer eternal hell himself if it meant that the unbelieving Jews could be saved. This is nothing less that the Spirit of Christ in Paul moving him to say this because Jesus actually was accursed and cut off so that we could be saved. Paul was feeling for his lost Jewish brethren what Christ had felt and been willing to do for the entire human race! This is, no doubt, what made Paul such a tireless worker for the sake of the Gospel. Paul really cared about lost people and was willing to suffer any personal loss of inconvenience if he could save some of them. Until we are willing to feel deep compassion, and even weep, for the souls of people, we will probably not be moved to do much for their sad state. If we do not weep for the lost, as well as for those who have fallen away, then our hearts are not beating in rhythm with the heart of God. Like Jeremiah, Jesus, Paul, and many other faithful servants sent from God, we must weep, while there is still time to weep, for those who have been “slain” and ruined by sin.