A Bottle of Tears

   James Foley

Country Baptist Church

  12/26/10

Text:  Psa. 56:8                                               

“Thou tellest my wanderings:  put thou my tears into thy bottle:  are they not in thy book.”
 

INTRO:  Job says that, “Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.”  Every child that is born into this world will face many troubles and shed many tears before he or she comes to the end of the way.  Some will have fewer troubles than others and so shed fewer tears, but none shall completely escape.

But the Christian’s tears, unlike those of the unbelievers, are so precious that God saves them in a bottle as a memorial.  We don’t know what is meant by that bottle, but we do not need to know.  We just know that it is important that He does save our tears in some manner.

Let us notice some who have suffered almost unbearable grief and shed tears until it seemed there would never be an end of sorrow.

Can you imagine the grief of Adam and Eve when one of their sons murdered his brother?  You know that Adam and Eve loved both of their sons, and what a rude shock to find one of their sons dead and the other a murderer.  Their lives were literally torn apart and their hearts broken in pieces.  They no doubt thought that they could never get over their grief and the sun would never again shine into their lives.  Can you see them in your mind’s eye as they laid Abel’s body in the earth and covered it over with dirt, and turned away with grief written on their features, their eyes brimming with tears as hot as a volcano?

But they were God’s and He put their tears into His bottle for a memorial of their love and sorrow.

See the faithful Abraham as he climbed the mountain in the land of Moriah with his beloved son Isaac.  God commanded him to sacrifice Isaac on an altar.  See Abraham with his arm raised on high as he readies the knife which would momentarily take the life of his son, as he believed.  He could no doubt hardly see for the tears that flooded his eyes and blurred his vision.  How his heart must have sunk within him as the knife was poised to strike.  However, God will not condone human sacrifices, with the one exception of His Son Jesus, but was only testing Abraham, so he stopped Abraham from doing the deed.

Abraham had a beautiful wife whom he dearly loved more than life itself.  She had been his companion for many years.  But old age overtook them as it does all of us, and Sarah died, and with her Abraham’s heart nearly died within him.  I can see him as he bent over her lifeless body in the Cave of Machpelah, his tears anointing her body for her internment.  Poor heart-broken Abraham!  Even we ourselves can feel for him in his sorrow.  And see him as he turns away from the lifeless form of Sarah with tears streaming down his cheeks.  Abraham’s tears are in God’s Bottle.

And then there is King David.  His son Absalom conspired to destroy David and take the throne.  After Absalom was slain in battle David lamented his death with the touching words, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom!  Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!”  11 Samuel 18:33.  How heart wrenching it is today for us to just read those words of David’s grief.  A father to the last David mourned for Absalom though Absalom would have killed him.

We cannot help but think of Job while he sat in ashes, his body savaged with sores and being eaten by worms, and mourning the death of his children while his so-called friends accused him of being a hypocrite, and his wife tempted him to curse God and die.  Our greatest sorrows may well come from those we love the most.  But Job’s tears are in God’s bottle.  Many have accused Job’s wife of being heartless and cruel, but I believe Job’s wife was a fine, sensitive woman.  Her grief must have been terrible to see her husband suffering so, and in her desperation she did what many people, even sometimes Christians do when they are out of their minds with grief.  She blamed God.  I believe her tears are in God’s bottle along with those of Job.

See Jesus as He wept at the tomb of Lazarus.  See the widow that had lost her only son to fever, and whom Jesus raised on the way to the cemetery.  See Jesus as He wept over Jerusalem because of their coming national doom.  Hear Jesus as He cried out, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!  Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.”  Matt.  23:37-38. Have any other words ever been uttered that  express such sorrow and grief?  And see Mary, the mother of Jesus, as she saw Jesus hanging on that cursed cross, beaten beyond recognition, and behold her grief.  (See Isa. 52:14).  See Jesus as He hung on the cross being scorned and jeered by those He came to save.  There are certainly many tears in God’s bottle.

But the most beautiful tears are the tears of repentance.  See David as he watered his couch with his tears of repentance over his sin against Uriah the faithful.  How terrible his sin, but how beautiful his tears of repentance.

And then there are the tears of the woman that washed the feet of Jesus with her tears.  They are in God’s bottle of remembrance.

Consider the beloved apostle to the Gentiles, the apostle Paul.  After a lifetime of service in which he suffered many things he was, at the last, turned against by the very ones his ministry had benefited.  He was once beaten and left for dead.  Listen to one account of his sufferings for the cause of Christ and the good of the brethren; “….in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft.  Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.  Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep.  In journeyings often, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren.  In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.  Besides those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches.”  II Cor. 11:23-28.  In 1 Cor. 16:32 Paul said, “I fought with beasts at Ephesus.”  In spite of all the hardships and sufferings Paul went through, when he became old a younger generation forsook him.  He said in 11 Timothy 1:15, “….all they which are in Asia be turned away from me.”  In Phil. 9 Paul described himself as “Paul the aged”.  Imagine that frail old man imprisoned for the cause of Christ looking back over his life of hardship and then having to suffer the rejection of the churches he had established and devoted so much of his life to.  I can imagine the tears running down his cheeks.  How criminal it was for those that forsook him in his old age, but it has often been so that the young have no time for the aged who have long sowed the gospel in tears.  But God had not forsaken him, and his tears are in God’s bottle of remembrance, and he now rests in the bosom of the Lord.

Time would fail us to tell of the seventy-million plus martyrs that gave their lives to the torture rack and the flames for the testimony of Jesus.  They loved not their lives unto the death.  Their tears are in God’s bottle for a memorial to their devotion.

And think of God’s people who have sowed the gospel in tears:  “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.  He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.”  Psa. 12:5-6.

This old world is certainly filled with sorrow and trouble.  Society as it is today is not our final home, thank God.  Thousands lie suffering in hospital beds.  Many die in the streets and on the highways.  Many have suffered through wars, watching comrades die at their sides.  Mothers and fathers weep over wayward children.  Children are abandoned.  Others are aborted before they ever have a chance to live.  Faithful wives are deserted by their husbands, and faithful husbands are betrayed by wayward wives.  Lives on every hand are destroyed by alcohol and illicit drugs.  There are those who are sick in mind and body with nobody to care if they live or die.

But God sees it all, and He cares.  I love that old hymn, “Does Jesus Care?”  “O, yes He cares, I know He cares.  His heart is touched with my grief.”  Yes, He cares.  God’s bottle is full of tears, and for those who love Him, and are saved by His grace, there is a rainbow in every one of those tears.  The rainbow we see in the sky after a storm represents the promise of God, and we can look forward to the time when the storms of life are over and rely on the promises of God.  Those of God’s children who have lived long do not desire to go around again.  They have seen enough of the world’s wicked societies.  They have had enough sorrow to fill God’s bottle to the brim with tears, and look forward to the rainbow of promise.  The Word of God tells us that there is a rainbow around the throne of God.  That means there will be no more storms.  O, for the day when all God’s children will stand before His throne in the light of that rainbow of promise.  Rev. 21:4 tells us that “….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.”  The only tears that will be then in evidence are those in the Lord’s bottle of remembrance, shining like gems as a memorial to His grace that sees us through all our trials and brings us in the triumph of the blood of the covenant to victory at last over all the evils of a creation ruined by sin.  To God be the glory.  Those tears in His bottle are the most priceless gems in the universe, and I for one am glad they will be preserved forever as a memorial to God’s goodness.

All of us have suffered through many sorrows.  We have buried loved ones.  We have lost fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, children, and grandfathers and grandmothers, and friends that we dearly loved.  The reunion with those who have gone on before us will be all the sweeter for the parting that so grieved us.  The things that can cause us to shed tears of sorrow seem endless, but there will finally be an end.

We would not want to leave the impression that all is sorrow in this old world.  God is gracious in that He compensates with treasure that thrills our hearts with joy and puts a song in our mouths.  There are beauties that shine brighter than the noon-day sun, and compensates for all our sorrows.  Every time I hear the wind in the tree-tops it is like God playing a melody of love.  The babbling of a brook to me is music sweeter than the finest symphony of the world’s greatest musicians.  The song of the birds of the air is the music of God Himself, for He has made every song bird into a musical instrument of matchless clarity and the sweetest of tones.  Who does not thrill to the soft, mournful notes of the mourning dove?  Even in the desert the wind plays a sage-brush guitar and the voices of the night accompany the music.

And for our eyes He has painted the sky the bluest of blue and put the great majestic eagle in the sky to give us a vision of beauty and grace.  No artist can duplicate the purple of the pansy.  Every snow-flake is a crystal of exquisite geometric diversity.  In the springtime the mountain meadow is a riot of color.  The violets brighten the brook side in spring.  Clover bedecks the meadows of the lowlands.  Goldenrod heralds the autumn and the lovely columbine grows in the shade of the aspen groves high in the mountains in mid-summer.  The graceful deer feed on the hillsides.

At night the starry sky speaks to us of the omnipotence and omniscience and omnipresence of God.  His smile is in every moonbeam, and in the twinkle of every bright star He winks assurance to His blood-bought children.

But the greatest blessing He has provided us with to offset the sorrows we all must sometimes suffer as we journey in this world, and to provide encouragement and help in times of grief, is the love and fellowship of Christian brethren.  This He provides in the local church.  And best of all we have Jesus in our hearts to speak to us in soft tones of comfort and encouragement.  There is a lot of bitter and a lot of sweet, but the sweet far outweighs the bitter, for our God reigns in our hearts because Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins, and because of that our joy and comfort are full.

Why is it so important that God save our tears in His bottle?  Because Jesus took our tears and made them His tears of compassion for us in our grief.  Jesus died for the sins that cause so much grief to our souls, and so each one of our tears is His tear.  That is why God is saving all of our tears.  That is what the prophet Isaiah meant when he said, “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.”  Isaiah also said of Him that He was “a man of sorrows”.  When we get born down by our sorrows let’s remember that Jesus sorrowed for the sorrows of every one of us.  Sorrow wove His swaddling cloth as he lay in the hay in the manger, and sorrow wound His grave clothes in the tomb.  During His life He had “no place to lay His head”, while even the foxes of the field had dens, and the birds of the air had nests.

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