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(Maria Sandberg, "Glimpses of Heaven!" 1880)
"God will wipe away every tear from their eyes!" Revelation 7:17
Although it is true that "whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives"--still we are not all called upon to suffer great tribulation. God appoints for each, the discipline needed to prepare him for glory. With some He deals gently, for "He knows how much the weak can bear." He sees the tenderness of their spirits, the gentleness of their nature. With others He may appear to deal more harshly--He alone knows how hard and stubborn is their will, how great their backslidings, how needful all this seeming severity. He also permits great tribulation to fall upon some, that they may be examples to His Church; examples of love, of patience, of long-suffering--and is not this an honor? Shall we not count it all joy to be thus tried?
And has not God promised to proportion His consolations to the sufferings of His people? With what powerful comfort will such a passage as that which we are meditating upon, come home to the deeply-tried Christian--to him whose tears are wrung from him by pain of body, loss of friends, one bitter affliction after another: "God will wipe away every tear from their eyes!"
The anticipation of suffering is often a cause of greater anguish than suffering itself; for though we are told not to worry about anything--still, the anxious mind will often distress itself with gloomy forebodings while in this valley of tears. But in Heaven, we shall have no fear of evil--no cause for fears. God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes:
the tear of sympathy,
the tear of pity,
the tear of separation,
the tear of pain,
the tear of godly sorrow for sin,
the tear of disappointed hope,
the tear of wounded affection
--shall flow no more!
"God will wipe away every tear from their eyes!"
(Maria Sandberg, "Glimpses of Heaven!" 1880)
"God will wipe away every tear from their eyes!" Revelation 7:17
Although it is true that "whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives"--still we are not all called upon to suffer great tribulation. God appoints for each, the discipline needed to prepare him for glory. With some He deals gently, for "He knows how much the weak can bear." He sees the tenderness of their spirits, the gentleness of their nature. With others He may appear to deal more harshly--He alone knows how hard and stubborn is their will, how great their backslidings, how needful all this seeming severity. He also permits great tribulation to fall upon some, that they may be examples to His Church; examples of love, of patience, of long-suffering--and is not this an honor? Shall we not count it all joy to be thus tried?
And has not God promised to proportion His consolations to the sufferings of His people? With what powerful comfort will such a passage as that which we are meditating upon, come home to the deeply-tried Christian--to him whose tears are wrung from him by pain of body, loss of friends, one bitter affliction after another: "God will wipe away every tear from their eyes!"
The anticipation of suffering is often a cause of greater anguish than suffering itself; for though we are told not to worry about anything--still, the anxious mind will often distress itself with gloomy forebodings while in this valley of tears. But in Heaven, we shall have no fear of evil--no cause for fears. God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes:
the tear of sympathy,
the tear of pity,
the tear of separation,
the tear of pain,
the tear of godly sorrow for sin,
the tear of disappointed hope,
the tear of wounded affection
--shall flow no more!
"God will wipe away every tear from their eyes!"
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