Thus says the Lord:
“Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength.”
Jeremiah 17:5
Wallace: Was that a tear? How do you people do it? Do you poke yourself in the eye? Or are you thinking right now “My dog is dead”?
Lorelei ‘Lori’: What’s the matter with you? Are you enjoying this?
Wallace: Enormously! “My dog… is dead”.
(Bill Murray from ‘The Man Who Knew Too Little’)
Can you cry at will?
If you can learn to master this difficult art, you can have people eating out of your hand! There is nothing more powerful or persuasive than a good tear. Hot beads of passion rolling down the cheek of a child, or crystal pools of disappointment welling up in the bloodshot eyes of your wife can move you in ways nothing else can.
And if you know how to manufacture these liquid bullets while preaching, or program them to stream like a silver faucet when sharing with friends about how God spoke to you, a popular prophet you will become. Religious gravitas can be yours for the taking, just cry. I once worked with a lady who could curse a blue streak with the roughest of sailor before church, but once she started singing with tears cascading down her face while up on the platform, the audience became like putty in her hands. Moved by her pious presentation many a sentimental heart would praise her for how close she must be to Jesus.
Tears are power.
Tears can also self-deceive. For instance, if I am praying or singing a song and I cry, it must mean I had a profitable encounter with God. Right? My devotional time was not dry and dead? In the book of Malachi 2:13 the people were coming before God praying and crying hoping he would answer their prayers, but he would not. Listen in. . .
“And this second thing you do. You cover the Lord’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. But you say, ‘Why does he not?’ Because the Lord was a witness…”
In other words, God alone knows what is truly in the heart of man, tears notwithstanding. God knows emotions and feelings don’t necessarily indicate authenticity. Sure, sometimes a good cry can be authentic, and quite cathartic, but not all the time. And herein lies their hidden danger, they are very persuasive. Many a person has allowed themselves to be led astray by the presence of tears, visions, heart-driven convictions, impressions of their own or other’s often leading to nothing more than empty sentiment.
Faith does not spring from tears.
Faith stands on one sure foundation: “…hearing (not crying, experiencing, or feeling), and hearing through the word of Christ.” I am convinced when faith is detached from the certainty of God’s word it usually ends up being nothing but a fiction embraced by a gullible heart. Listen to how Miles Stanford in the Green Letters puts it, “Faith has nothing to do with probabilities. The province of faith begins where probabilities cease and sight and sense fail. Appearances are not to be taken into account. The question is – – whether God has spoken it in His word.”
He continues, “Too often the attitude is, ‘The way things are going I wonder if the Lord really loves me,’ but that statement is based on a probability…not a reality.” Listen to how 2 Peter 1:16-19 puts it…
“For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,’ we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place.”
Just think Peter heard God’s voice audibly, he saw Jesus shining in his lightning white clothes draped in the Glory of his Father. And yet he says, “we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed.” Translation: the written word is to be trusted more than the experience he witnessed. It is more sure.
So even if there is crying or no crying, when you trust in the promises of God’s word you will stand firm. I love it when tears are born from the truth, it does change me. But tears without God’s testimony are empty puddles soon to evaporate into the realm of nothingness.
Go ahead and cry if you want, but if they are not genuine you ain’t fooling God.
