Misspent tears.
I. WHY NOT WEEP FOR THE DEAD? It is natural to do so. The religion of the Bible is not stoicism. Christ wept by the grave of Lazarus. Yet there are times and circumstances which make it fitting not to weep for the dead, and there are always grounds for the mitigation of such grief.
1. The dead are taken from the evil to come. This is the idea of Jeremiah. If death was a calamity, the fate of the living at the overthrow of Jerusalem would have been a worse one. If an evil, death is still the less of two evils. Even if we only think of the dead as leaving the sunlight of this upper world and passing to the dim land of shades, still they go to the place "where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." In less calamitous times we should feel that, as God knows all, he may have taken our loved ones to save them from some fearful evil which he, though he alone, saw in their path.
2. The dead are removed according to the wall of God. David wept for his child while it lived; after it was dead he dried his tears, for then he knew God's will and resigned himself to it (2 Samuel 12:22, 2 Samuel 12:23). This resignation is more than a sensible recognition of the inevitable; it is a calm and trustful acquiescence in the will of God as righteously supreme—for if the Lord gave, may he not take away?—wise, and good.
3. The dead have fallen into the hands of God. In what better hands can they be? How much better to fall into the hands of God than into the hands of man! We dare not dogmatize concerning the deep mysteries of futurity. But one thing we know—"The mercy of the Lord endureth forever." He is just, he may seem stern; the impenitent must suffer punishment, which can be nothing else but fearful, though fair. Yet may not this be the very best thing for them, even during their sufferings? For it is better for us to suffer for sin than to sin without suffering. And who knows what ultimate designs God may have?
4. The dead in Christ never need our tears. We may weep for our own loss, but this is their gain. Weep that the battle is over and victory won? Weep that the pilgrimage is finished and the pilgrim safe at home? Weep that the toil and sorrow, the temptation and sin, of this world are left behind, and the joys of heaven inherited? that the night has ended, the shadows flown away? that the light of the celestial city is beaming on the weary wanderer? Such tears are tears of unbelief.
II. WHY WEEP FOR THE LIVING? This may be required by special causes. Life is his children m this "a blessing. God gives many joys to his children in this world. The continuance of life is a privilege carrying with it the extension of advantages for faithful service. The brave and loyal servant of God will not selfishly crave a premature release from the duties of his life. Still there is a pathos about all life. "Our sincerest laughter with some pain is fraught." Special circumstances may make it fitting to weep for the living. There are calamities that are worse than death. Such seem to have been realized in the horrors of the sieges of Jerusalem. It is worse to live in sin than to die. The lost and ruined life claims our pity far more than that which is cut off by an early death. What curse could be greater than that of the "Wandering Jew?" Matthew Henry says, "Dying saints may be justly envied, while living sinners are justly pitied. And so dismal perhaps the prospects of the times may be, that tears even for a Josiah, even for a Jesus, must be restrained, that they may be reserved for ourselves and our children (Luke 23:28).' Why should not this situation justify suicide? Because