"To Every Thing There Is A Season ... A Time. To Weep, And A Time To Laugh" (Ecclesiastes 3.1-4)

by Jarvis, A. G. | Category: To Every Thing There Is A Season ... A Time. To Weep, And A | Dec 1961

We think, too, of faithful men who "go forth weeping, bearing forth the seed", men burdened with a deep love for souls.

"The handles of my plow with tears are wet."

So wrote a missionary in his loneliness. Ah! but this is only half the story for it is written,

They that sow in tears shall reap in joy" (Psalm i26. 5).

So it is written too of the Lord, that He "for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising shame, and bath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Hebrews 12.2).

On earth there are still known the alternations of sorrow and joy, but we are moving fast to the land where "neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more," where God Himself "shall wipe away every tear from their eyes," and where there shall be no death, no night, no curse. There "His servants shall do Him service; and they shall see His face" (Revelation 22.8, 4). But let us recall that ere this could be, our Lord Jesus Christ had to know the tears, the night, the curse, the death, "yea, the death of the cross."

We have noted that while here the experiences of joy and grief alternate. It is an intensely solemn thought that, while for us who

know the Saviour eternal joy is assured, for those who reject Him, the Lord speaks of a place of outer darkness, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

"While the earth remaineth ... day and night shall not cease" (Genesis 8.22), but mankind is hastening on to that fixed state, that eternal destiny, either to that happy place of which it is said, "There is no night there," or to "the blackness of darkness for ever."

Jarvis, A. G. | Dec 1961
To Every Thing There Is A Season ... A Time. To Weep, And A