When Tears Shall Be No More
Dan Rodgers
Revelation 21:1-6
Sunday, April 7, 2006
ILLUS: In ancient Athens, at the gateway to the famous Parthenon, there stood an altar dedicated to "Tears." No sacrifices were offered there and no offerings were made. It was simply a place where the penitent and grief-stricken could bow to weep out their sorrows.1
ILLUS: It is said that one of the most popular places in the Chinese city of Nanjing offers only a sofa, a few tables, and tissues--a lot of tissues. Here, in a place of privacy, customers can sit and cry. Owner Luo Jun said he "decided to offer a place to cry for people who said they often wanted to cry but didn't have a place to go."2
The world is full of tears, isn't it? Human existence has been marked by tragedy, heartache, disappointment, and evil. It's comforting to know that the time is coming when sorrow and death will pass away, and God Himself will wipe all tears from our eyes.3 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 (Rev. 21:4b).
POEM: Ackley wrote,
God's tomorrow is a day of gladness,
And its joys shall never fade;
No more weeping, no more sense of sadness,
No more foes to make afraid.
As we look again at our passage this morning, let's consider three things:
I. Our Present Tears
II. Our Heavenly Prospect
III. Our Personal Invitation
I. OUR PRESENT TEARS
How can one measure sorrow? How could one count the tears? By the way, it may interest you to know that God holds our tears in a bottle. The Psalmist wrote, Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book? (Psalm 56:8).
If we could draw a time-line from the Garden of Eden to this present day, and see a chronicle of all the wars, murders, broken homes and fallen nations; if we could recall in the form of an image, all the heartache that has resulted from si ...
Dan Rodgers
Revelation 21:1-6
Sunday, April 7, 2006
ILLUS: In ancient Athens, at the gateway to the famous Parthenon, there stood an altar dedicated to "Tears." No sacrifices were offered there and no offerings were made. It was simply a place where the penitent and grief-stricken could bow to weep out their sorrows.1
ILLUS: It is said that one of the most popular places in the Chinese city of Nanjing offers only a sofa, a few tables, and tissues--a lot of tissues. Here, in a place of privacy, customers can sit and cry. Owner Luo Jun said he "decided to offer a place to cry for people who said they often wanted to cry but didn't have a place to go."2
The world is full of tears, isn't it? Human existence has been marked by tragedy, heartache, disappointment, and evil. It's comforting to know that the time is coming when sorrow and death will pass away, and God Himself will wipe all tears from our eyes.3 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 (Rev. 21:4b).
POEM: Ackley wrote,
God's tomorrow is a day of gladness,
And its joys shall never fade;
No more weeping, no more sense of sadness,
No more foes to make afraid.
As we look again at our passage this morning, let's consider three things:
I. Our Present Tears
II. Our Heavenly Prospect
III. Our Personal Invitation
I. OUR PRESENT TEARS
How can one measure sorrow? How could one count the tears? By the way, it may interest you to know that God holds our tears in a bottle. The Psalmist wrote, Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book? (Psalm 56:8).
If we could draw a time-line from the Garden of Eden to this present day, and see a chronicle of all the wars, murders, broken homes and fallen nations; if we could recall in the form of an image, all the heartache that has resulted from si ...
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