We had rain the other day, real rain, weighty drops falling as tears from heaven. In the rain a picture of God weeping formed. For surely He must be, weeping that is over this not sun-baked but sin-baked, spiritually dried out land, this erstwhile gospel-shaped country that has been given all the promises of God in the message of Jesus.
The promises for which men and women fought and gave their lives, burned, hanged that this land may be set free, a Hugh Latimer crying out to his friend Nicholas Ridley as they burned together “Be of good comfort, Mr. Ridley, and play the man! We shall this day light such a candle by God’s grace, in England, as I trust never shall be put out.”; William Tyndale, as he hanged so we could read the promises of God in English, praying that God would open the King of England’s eyes- He did, to the benefit of those a world away. Us!
And so now, the rain falls, drops of God’s tears over this Christ-rejecting land. But it is not new of course. The people of the promise, the people of Jerusalem rejected Him too and Jesus wept the tears of God. How much more must God be raining tears on this Christ-dismissing country, that received but now ignores all the blessings of the gospel,
God is weeping. What will our response be?
Paul also, the great apostle, had “great sorrow and unceasing anguish” in his heart (Romans 9:2) over the Christ-rejecting people of the promise, his Jewish brothers and sisters who had been given all the benefits of the blessings of God.
Could it be that this is the generation in which Latimer’s candle, brought here across the seas, dies in these lands? Or will we weep God’s tears also for those Christ-rejecting millions around us consigned to eternal darkness. Will we pray again for ourselves and His now emaciated and enfeebled church, to be filled with the power of the Spirit of the Jesus who weeps, the Spirit of the God whose tears as rain from heaven fall on the corruption, degradation, spiritual desiccation and bankruptcy of Christendom lost. Such that God’s tears may cease.
Indeed, it rains, God is weeping. What will our response be?
unbounded church 