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 THE CHURCH HAS NO TEARS! by brother Greg

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[b]The Church Has No Tears![/b]
[i]by brother Greg[/i]

[i]An Urgent plea for revival and spiritual awakening[/i]

Saints of God can we sit by idle as the hour creeps on till we are in eternal bliss? Revival is tarrying and men are slipping into hell-fire by the moment! Oh the horror of it! Do you feel the concern dear reader or is your heart passionless, tearless, prayerless. Do you have tears for the lost? Surely revival tarries for the simple fact that we do not have tears. - Greg Gordon

DRY-EYED CHRISTIANITY

Machinery, Methods and Models characterize the modern day 20th Century Church. Never in the history of the Church have we been so sufficient yet lacking so much! By our actions we are saying what God has begun in the Spirit we can perfect in the flesh. We are Laodicean! Rich, increased with goods, and we have need of nothing. We want to have revival man’s way, not God’s way. We know nothing of revival, nothing of God’s power, nothing of God’s travail, nothing of God’s sorrow over a lost and damned world. A Laodicean church is dry-eyed, a Laodicean church never loses sleep, shuns pain, suffering and anything that disturbs its status-quo. The Laodicean church cannot share God’s heart, for it is so far removed from God and His economy. David Smithers accurately says: “There are many who want the joy of revival without the sorrow of travail. God’s chosen revival instrument’s have always embraced both.”

It is almost a offense to the modern Christian mind that we need to have tears or travail. We have lost in our vocabulary the concepts such as: Soul-Travail, Mourning, Pleading, Praying-Through, Weeping, Godly Sorrow, Burdens. With dry-eyes we attempt great things for God and then tell Him about it afterwards. We have left God out of our modern day attempts to do Church, though we do at times remind Him of things and ask for the occasional blessing, yet overall God is outside the Church. With dry eyes we read the mighty exploits of God’s men in the past and it does not disturb us to think we are so far removed from these things. We have no burden or soul-riveting desire to see these things manifest in our generation. By the way Christian’s live in our day we are saying that “God is the same yesterday, and forever,” but not today! Could God disturb our status-quo and give us brimming and bursting eyes over the fact of the lostness of men and the fact of their spending a eternity without God. We lay our burden’s on God but who does He lay His burden’s on? Can God share His burden with you? Our dry-eyed Christianity is a denial of two thousand years of Church History. Oh the weight of testimony that will be against you in that dreadful day, the day of Judgement! We know to live better then we are living and that is our condemnation.

SHOULD WE NOT WEEP?

Surely a vision of hell, a glimpse of the horror of its reality would shake us out of complacency and lukewarmness. Surely for those that are “asleep in Zion” the very mention of this is repugnant to their minds. Those that discuss hell and the lostness of men would surely be ostracized in modern churches where there is a heaven without a hell, salvation without damnation, eternal joy without eternal suffering. I can assure you that those that have been gripped by such a vision cannot remain “dry-eyed.” Let us hear from some saints that have gone before us, Leonard Ravenhill shares two startling accounts in the last two hundred years.

“The scholarly Andrew Bonar lay on his bed on a saturday night in Scotland, and as people below tramped the streets from taverns and shows, he used to call from his tortured heart: ‘Oh! they perish, they perish!’ Alas, brethren we have not so learned Christ. Many of us know only a slick, tearless, passionless, soulless round of preaching which passes for the minister’s office these days.”

“William Booth of the Salvation Army is quoted as saying that if he could do it, he would have finalized the training of his soldiers with twenty four hours hanging over hell, to see its eternal torment. Fundamentalism needs this awe-striking vision again! Because the Church has lost Holy Ghost fire, men go to hell-fire.”

Saints of God can we sit by idle as the hour creeps on till we are in eternal bliss? Revival is tarrying and men are slipping into hell-fire by the moment! Oh the horror of it! Do you feel the concern dear reader or is your heart passionless, tearless, prayerless. Do you have tears for the lost? Surely revival tarries for the simple fact that we do not have tears. Hear the impassioned plea from Oswald J. Smith who brought the gospel to over 50 countries:

“Can we travail for a drowning child, but not for a perishing soul? It is not hard to weep when we realize that our little one is sinking below the surface for the last time. Anguish is spontaneous then. Nor is it hard to agonize when we see the casket containing all that we love on earth borne out of the home. Ah, no; tears are natural at such a time. But oh, to realize and know that souls, precious, never dying souls, are perishing all around us, going out into the blackness of darkness and despair, eternally lost, and yet to feel no anguish, shed no tears, know no travail! How cold are our hearts! How little we know of the compassion of Jesus! And yet God can give us this, and the fault is ours if we do not have it. Jacob, you remember, travailed until he prevailed. but oh, who is doing it today? Who is really travailing in prayer? How many, even of your most spiritual Christian leaders, are content to spend half an hour a day on their knees and then pride themselves on the time they have given to God!”

James Caughey who was converted in the days of Finney and used mightily by God shared this burden of weeping for souls: “Jesus wept over Jerusalem, when He beheld a cloud of wrath gathering over it - why, Oh, why, should not we weep? I repeat it, why should not we weep to behold the mouths of the grave and of hell preparing to open and to engulf so many. Instead of repressing our tears, should we not rather say with the prophet Jeremiah, ‘Oh, that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people?’ And if sinners will despise, and sin on, we can only resolve with Jeremiah again, "But if ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride, and mine eyes shall weep sore and run down with tears." Who of us, or who that has ever read the writings and history of Jeremiah the prophet, would charge him with weak-mindedness? We are the followers of ‘The Man of Sorrows.’ Like Him, we are ‘acquainted with grief.’”

THE VALUE OF TEARS

The old Puritans used to pray for "the gift of tears." Have we considered ourselves to have reached a higher plateau or echelon of spiritual experience? Oh to realize the value of tears in God’s Kingdom. “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.” The Holy Scriptures places this principle clearly, shall we neglect it? Ask the Prophets, Apostles, or the Lord Jesus Himself, if their ministries were bathed in tears. Hear three testimonies from the past that will show you the utmost value of tears:

“E. M. Bounds in the Christian Advocate once wrote; a tearful ministry is at a premium in the Bible; however, it may be discounted by our gospel of fun, which seeks to make people feel good and laugh heartily. God's Hebrew prophets were serious men - men of the tearful eye and of the tearful heart. Jeremiah was the weeping prophet who wanted his head to be water and his eyes a fountain of tears that he might weep day and night. Isaiah, the most gifted of them, said, "I will weep bitterly, labor not to comfort me." The minister is not to deal with a system or a church - he is neither a professor nor a pope - but he deals with men, and a tearful tenderness is the gift for soul winning power. The ministry of Christ was a tearful ministry. The summary of His ministry is drawn by the divine pen, "who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears." His ministry broke His heart as well as sacrificed His life. The true apostles of Christ, the bravest and the best, have ever been, like their Lord, tearful men. They have followed in His footsteps "weeping, bearing precious seed," and all their songs and success have grown out of a soil that they have watered by their tears. Paul's ministry was tuned to this strain of tearful tenderness. "Serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears." "I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears." His letters were inspired by hearty compassion and sorrow. "For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears." "I ... tell you, even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ." His strongest and sharpest utterances were softened and bathed in tears. Timothy's ministry was one of tears: tears that touched Paul and gave intensity and charm to Timothy and his ministry. Tears are the symbols and fruit of a compassionate ministry. How we need to be in the company and school of Christ till our hearts are broken and we have caught somewhat of the sober seriousness, somewhat of the infinite tearfulness, somewhat of the fathomless sorrow that possessed Him!“

A. G. Osterberg was an eyewitness of the Azusa revival. He gives some interesting insights into this remarkable move of the Spirit. "I have been asked what in your judgment was the outstanding spiritual phenomenon of the revival?" My reply was, "Without question, it can be answered in one word, namely tears! The greatest hindrance in the entire realm of revivals is the hardness of heart and spirit. Its cause is spiritual rebellion against God, exercised in an embezzled human sovereignty. Among Christians, hardness of heart is probably the greatest single obstacle to revival. The Azusa revival began where every revival should rightly begin - in repentant tears. It began in tears, it lived in tears, and when the tears ended, the Azusa revival ended. Tears of guilt confession; tears of fault confession; tears in humble contrition; tears of self-denial in expression of soul humility, tears of sheer gladness and heavenly joy; Holy Ghost tears intermingling testimony and praise, often overflowing upon the congregation as a benediction from the battlements of glory."

“When Mrs. McAulay went to toil in the East of London with her devoted husband, she was so heartbroken at what she saw of the ravages of sin and the impotence of the Christian Church that she cried herself blind. The sight of one eye was restored, but she carried one sightless eye to her grave, thus bearing in her body the marks of the Lord Jesus. She knew, indeed, what it was to sigh and cry over the abominations done in the city.”

WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO MOVE US?

The Church has no tears! and the world around us perishes. Read carefully the words of the Apostle Paul: “For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even with weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ.” The blunt hard fact to deal with is that “many” are walking apart from God whose “end is destruction.” Can we truly understand this and fathom this without tears in our eyes? The Apostle Paul could not! What will it take to move us? Oh how we need to pray for a soul-shaking, hell-robbing revival in these last days. The choice is ours brethren!


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SI Moderator - Greg Gordon

 2006/11/2 19:32Profile
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 Re: The Church Has No Tears! by Greg Gordon

Greg, thank you for this.

I need to join those Puritans who sought "the gift of tears."

In Christ,

Ron


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Ron Halverson

 2006/11/2 20:23Profile
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 Re:

I added the text to the first post. I am trying to promote the "pdf" copy. "I need to join those Puritans" Oh how we all need to dear brother.


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SI Moderator - Greg Gordon

 2006/11/2 23:09Profile
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 Re:

A tearless church is a sad thing. This is and excellent article Greg. The Lord is trying to tell us something. It is time to wake up.

Quote:
I need to join those Puritans who sought "the gift of tears."




We all to join those Puritians. If we seek earnestly after the Lord Jesus to let us see things the way he see them, to stamp eternity before our eyes, and to destroy our sinful and wicked hearts and build in us new hearts in the image of His heart, we can not help but to cry and weep and wail for the lost and the state of the church today. The heart of Jesus is broken over the state of the church and lost millions who are being cast into hell - the ones He died for who are being deceived and rejecting the grace and mercy of God.

We need to see things the way Jesus sees them, we need to see things in the light of eternity and we need to feel things with the heart of Jesus. Seek after eyes like Jesus and a heart like like Jesus, seek after a revelation of eternity and the tear will flow and the groans and moans will fill the air as you lay broken and crushed under burden and travail for what you see and feel all around you. Seek after these things and you be able to stop the weeping and wailing and the gift of tears will be yours.


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Patrick Ersig

 2006/11/3 0:03Profile
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 Re:

"Apart from me ye can do nothing."

We need to follow the example of Evan Roberts who had to pray "Bend me", before it could happen.

Father, do in us what we most assuredly on our own cannot, let this mind be in us which was also in Christ Jesus

Break open our calloused hearts that hardly shed a tear and may Christ who dwells in our hearts by faith weep in us and through us for the lost.

Oh God

Jesus wept. I want to be like Jesus.

 2006/11/3 6:47Profile
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 Re:

Great article Greg!

Quote:
WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO MOVE US?



All it takes for me is to get out on the front lines where Sin and Satan are escorting souls into hell weekly to arouse the compassion in me. I think that too often we try to drum up tears behind closed doors and need to get out and see the faces of those that hell is swallowing up. Jesus wept over Jerusalem, He saw the multitudes as sheep having no shepherd.

We hear a lot about dreams and visions? I was stunned in 2004 when the chaplain of the largest county jail in our city, with between 500 and 900 inmates came to our church with a message. He said that he dreamed in the night and the Holy Spirit said to him and I quote, "I am tired of your [i]perfunctory[/i] ways." The man, who is near 80 years old and been a minister most of his life, did not know what the word even meant and had to look it up in a dictionary. The word means work that is [i]carried out with a minimum of effort or reflection.[/i] That is one dream I can believe.

Moreover, its hard to weep and be angry and bitter at the same time at sinners. We can't call fire down on them and beg God for mercy for them in the same breath. that is two 'spirited' or double minded as we would know it. It's easy to get angry and almost want to beat the people into the Kingdom. Or get desperate and overstep the ways and means with which the heart of God calls sinners to repent. We need to check our own spirits if we can't weep for the lost. We need to open our eyes to the front lines and get out where they are and reach them for Christ. We need to pray for direction- get into a field and work it for Christ. Time is running out. We need to plant ourselves, dig in, and go to work.

He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. (Psalm 126:6)


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Robert Wurtz II

 2006/11/3 8:36Profile
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 Re: THE CHURCH HAS NO TEARS! by Greg Gordon

Boy the momentum in these threads is enough to burst the gates of hell wide open.
Father, let the pressure from you Kingdom burst us from within, may the pressure of the Light and truth rupture every obstacle within us, might your Holy Spirit pull the plug on all of our support systems, might our heart tremble and shake as it sees your hand reaching down towards us with fiery coals which will consume the last of us and allow us to then let your heart beat in its place.
Then and only then O lord will we weep as you weep for then and only then will we see as only you see and then and only then we will feel as you feel and then,
it will happen!
In Jesus name!Amen!!!!

Julian Raven


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Julian Raven

 2006/11/3 9:24Profile
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 Re:

Pray Saints, cry out, do not hold back for the Lord just might be tilting His attention our way..........?
Here we are Lord, do not pass us by, do not hold back from sending what ever we need to destroy every obstacle that hinders your work......Look upon us, look upon us and see if we might be fit for the work and if not make us ready, form us and fashion us after the image of your Son....
Pray......................
Teach us to Pray O God!!!!!!!!!!!
TEACH US TO PRAY O GOD!!!!!!!!!!!
TEACH US FATHER WE ARE DESPERATE FOR YOU!!!!!!
ENOUGH OF ALL THIS RIFF RAFF......
WE ARE SICK OF THIS SICKNESS!!!!!!!
HEAL US,DELIVER US, FORGIVE US, WASH US, CONVICT US AND SLAY OUR FLESH THAT WE MIGHT COME ALIVE.......I WANT TO BE ALIVE, I WANT TO BE AUTHENTIC, I WANT TO BE ON FIRE FOR YOU, I WANT TO SERVE YOU AND GIVE YOU GLORY, I WANT TO REMOVE THE SMUTT THAT HAS BEEN SLUNG ON YOUR PRECIOUS NAME, I AM SICK OF SEEING YOUR NAME BLASHPEMED, I AM SICK OF SEEING YOUR NAME BESMIRCHED.............LORD!!!!!!!!!!!!, HAVE MAERCY ON US AND MOVE UPON US AND SEND US WHAT WE NEED, SEND US YOUR FIRE AND YOUR PASSION AND YOUR WATER FOR WE NEED YOU DESPERATELY, MORE THAN EVER BEFORE MOVE ON US O GOD AND GLORIFY YOURSELF IN US I PRAY IN JESUS NAME......AMEN!


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Julian Raven

 2006/11/3 9:39Profile
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 Re: The Church Has No Tears ... Yet (Rev. 3:19) ...


Joel.1
[13] Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests: howl, ye ministers of the altar: come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God: for the meat offering and the drink offering is withholden from the house of your God.
[14] Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the LORD your God, and cry unto the LORD,
[15] Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come.

Joel.2
[1] Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the LORD cometh, for it is nigh at hand;
[15] Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly:
[16] Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet.
[17] Let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O LORD, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God?
[18] Then will the LORD be jealous for his land, and pity his people.
[19] Yea, the LORD will answer and say unto his people, Behold, I will send you corn, and wine, and oil, and ye shall be satisfied therewith: and I will no more make you a reproach among the heathen:
[23] Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God: for he hath given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month.
[24] And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.
[25] And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.
[26] And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and my people shall never be ashamed.
[27] And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the LORD your God, and none else: and my people shall never be ashamed.
[28] And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:
[29] And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.
[30] And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.
[31] The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.
[32] And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered:


This sounds like the only true REVIVAL FORMULA to me, which i believe confirmed by Holy Spirit in my own spirit ... So whether tears of pro-active weeping (which personally i believe we've already missed this opportunity), or re-active weeping (via our Lord's own corrective hand toward His house, which personally i believe is the only way He's gonna get our undivided attention) REPENTANCE toward REVIVAL is nigh ...

And as an aside to bro Strom's thread about the Church in American missing this 50 year cycle ... i personally don't think we'll be missing it! ... :-D

In the interim tho i continue to pray, rest and wait ;-) - Isa. 40:31

 2006/11/3 12:10Profile
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Quote:
Moreover, its hard to weep and be angry and bitter at the same time at sinners. We can't call fire down on them and beg God for mercy for them in the same breath. that is two 'spirited' or double minded as we would know it. It's easy to get angry and almost want to beat the people into the Kingdom. Or get desperate and overstep the ways and means with which the heart of God calls sinners to repent. We need to check our own spirits if we can't weep for the lost.


Brother Wurtz,

What you stated in this quote is very precious and important. I was going to address this area as an afterthought. I firmly believe this is a pivitol problem found in many zealous servants of Christ that are desiring even to see revival and hell-fire preaching. Oh the lack of tears speaks of our hidden shame. I have found myself being fustration and angry towards sinners in some of my evangelism attempts and God spoke softly to me "do you weep?" could "you weep with this anger in your heart?". The obvious answer is no! They are 2 different spirits. Oh to have a holy anger against sin is something precious but how many of us have the counterfeit.

Lord give us tears.


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