NO MORE TEARS

Transcript

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Hello everyone. This is Pastor Dean Thompson with the word of hope. No more tears. He will wipe away every tear. And death shall be no more, neither mourning nor crying nor pain. Revelation twenty one verse four. Twice in Revelation we are told that God will wipe away every tear.

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Once in chapter seven, as the multitude comes through the great tribulation, and now again here at the dawn of the new creation. The repetition is not redundancy, it is emphasis. Heaven wants to be absolutely sure we have heard it. And here the promise is expanding, it is expanded. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning or crying, nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away. Listen to that to the list of things that will be no more, because it is a catalogue of everything that has ever broken a human heart. Death the great thief, the several several of every relationship, mourning, the grief that follows when love meets loss. Crying, the audible expression of pain, and pain itself in all its forms, of body and of soul. One by one, the ancient enemies of human happiness are named and abolished. This is the most comprehensive promise of healing ever made. The reason given is brief and final, for the former things have passed away. The whole order, the whole old order, the order in which death and grief and pain were simply the way things are, has come to an end. We have lived so long under that order that we can scarcely imagine another. We assume suffering is woven into the fabric of existence. That to be alive is to be vulnerable to loss. Revelation declares that this is not the permanent nature of things, it is the former order, and it is passing away. Notice the word anymore. There will be no more mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore. The promise is not that these things never happened, they did, and they left their marks, but that they are finished with no possibility of return. In the new creation, there'll be no fear of there'll be no fear lurking behind the joy, no anxiety that the loss might come again. No shadow of the old griefs creeping back. When God says no more, He means it without remainder and without reversal. And once again, the personal tenderness of the act is breathtaking. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Even here, at the climax of cosmic renewal, with a whole new creation unfolding. God does not lose sight of the individual tear. The same hand that flings stars into being and abolishes death itself stoops to dry your particular eyes. The grandeur of the new creation does not swallow up the intimacy of your healing. God attends to the cosmos and to your cheek in the same gesture. This is the hope that allows Christians to grieve honestly without despairing. We do not pretend that the tears are not real. Revelation never asks us to. Hold on to the double promise. Every tear will be wiped away, and the things that cause them will be no more. Not numbed, not merely endured, but abolished by the hand of a God, tender enough to draw your eyes himself. The former things are passing away. Weep honestly now and hope without limit, for the day of no more is coming. Until then, by God's grace, let us be faithful. O Lord, we thank you for the day when death, mourning, crying, and pain will be no more. Abolished forever by your hand. Let us grieve honestly today, in this present age, but never without hope, knowing that according to your promise, you will wipe away every tear from our eyes.

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Please help us to endure to the end. In Jesus' name. Amen. God bless you, brothers and sisters.