rs, mere
tears, without words, are omnipotent with God. Words weary Him, while
tears overcome and command Him. He inhabits the tears of Israel.
Therefore, also, now, saith the Lord, turn ye unto Me with all your
heart, and with weeping and with mourning. And rend your heart, and not
your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God, for He is gracious and
merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth Him of the
evil. It is the same with ourselves. Tears move us. Tears melt us. We
cannot resist tears. Even counterfeit tears, we cannot be sure that they
are not true. And that is the main reason why our Lord is so good at
speaking to a petition. It is because His whole heart, and all the
moving passions of His heart, are in His intercessory office. It is
because He still remembers in the skies His tears, His agonies, and
cries. It is because He is entered into the holiest with His own tears
as well as with His own blood. And it is because He will remain and
abide before the Father the Man of Sorrows till our last petition is
answered, and till God has wiped the last tear from our eyes. When He
was in the coasts of Caesarea-Philippi, our Lord felt a great curiosity
to find out who the people thereabouts took Him to be. And it must have
touched His heart to be told that some men had insight enough to insist
that He was the prophet Jeremiah come back again to weep over Jerusalem.
He is Elias, said some. No; He is John the Baptist risen from the dead,
said others. No, no; said some men who saw deeper than their neighbours.
His head is waters, and His eyes are a fountain of tears. Do you not see
that He so often escapes into a lodge in the wilderness to weep for our
sins? No; He is neither John nor Elijah; He is Jeremiah come back again
to weep over Jerusalem! And even an apostle, looking back at the
beginning of our Lord's priesthood on earth, says that He was prepared
for His office by prayers and supplications, and with strong crying and
tears. From all that, then, let us learn and lay to heart that if we
would have one to speak well to our petitions, the Man of Sorrows is that
one. And then, as His remembrancers on our behalf, let us engage all
those among our friends who have the same grace of tears. But, above
all, let us be men of tears ourselves. For all the tears and all the
intercessions of our great High Priest, and all the importunings of our
best friends to boot, will avail us not