We have recently been studying Ezra 3:12- 13 in our Friday night bible study, about the older men who ‘wept with a loud voice’ and ‘shouted aloud for joy’. This was a time of mixed emotions as they saw the foundations of the temple newly laid as they returned to the land and recalled the former glory of Solomon’s temple when God was pleased to dwell with His people.
The Lord takes account of the tears of His people. In 2 Kings 20:5 the Lord says to King Hezekiah: ‘I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears:’ David was a man of tears and in Psalm 56:8 he says ‘Put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?’ As with these men, sometimes our tears are as a result of our own failings and we have brought difficult circumstances on ourselves. Often we sorrow as we think of those who are away from the Lord or those who show no interest in spiritual things. We sorrow for the loss of loved ones, even those who are ‘with Christ: which is far better’ (Phil 1:23)
We remember that the Lord was ‘a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief’ (Isaiah 53:3), who wept over a city, who wept at the death of a friend. Of course, He did not grieve for His own failings as there were none. Here was sinless humanity, His holy soul experiencing the impact of sin on the world, seeing the impotence of man to restore the effects of the Fall. But we know that He restored what He did not take away. To do this He was willing to be ‘made flesh’ (John 1:14), to tabernacle among men. He was able to comfort His people as He promised the disciples that ‘your sorrow will be turned into joy’ (‘John16:20). He sent another comforter when He went back to heaven and yet how amazing, that He still has a ministry of comfort to us in our times of testing: ‘he is able to succour them that are tempted’ (Heb 2:18). There is a man in the glory who knows how we feel and understands the trials of earth.
We are assured that in a future day, Israel’s restoration will be greater than that in Ezra’s time. Isaiah 51:11 states ‘Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.’ We read in Isaiah 25: 8 ‘He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces’. We are encouraged to look forward, not only to the millennial reign but beyond, to the fulfilment of the Divine plan to dwell with His people in a new heaven and a new earth. Revelation 21: 3 – 4 states: ‘Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them…..And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain’
We realise that there will be no temple there, ‘for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it’ Rev 21:22 Truly this will surpass the glory of any earthly temple. What a day of rejoicing that will be!
Paul