Prophetic Weeping

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · May 31, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 22.

Prophetic Weeping.

“O 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!” Jer. 9:1. It was not for those who had been slain in the past that Jeremiah felt so much inclined to weep. Neither weeping nor any other human exercise or service can avail anything for the welfare of those who have passed into the silence of the tomb. It was consequences that the prophet saw by the Spirit of prophecy, the future results of the then present lives of his people, that were giving him such a burden of sorrow and anxiety. It was because they were walking “after the imagination of their own heart,” that the Lord said by the prophet, “I will scatter them also among the heathen, whom neither they nor their fathers have known; and I will send a sword after them, till I have consumed them.” And Jeremiah lived to see in reality what he then saw in vision, and so bitterly lamented. It was not many years after this prophecy when Jerusalem was destroyed, and the people were carried away to Babylon. And it was all because the Lord’s people forsook His law, and refused to listen to His voice uttered through His prophet. Let none forget that “whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning.” God has not changed, neither has His law. “If thou seek Him, He will be found of thee; but if thou forsake Him, He will cast thee off forever.”