Weeping over Sin

7/26/2011 7:53:24 AM

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                                                                                                             Focus: He cared enough to weep

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                                                         Reference:  Nehemiah 1:4

                Message of the verses:  “4  When I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days; and I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven.”

                In his commentary on this one verse Dr. Wiersbe writes: “What makes people laugh or weep is often an indication of character.  People who laugh at others’ mistakes or misfortunes, or who weep over trivial personal disappointments, are lacking either in culture or character, and possibly both.”  This statement got me to thinking so I looked up some of these different words in the Bible to see how many times they were used, and glanced at the verses to see what the situation was about for using them.  Weeping is used in the NASB95 56 times, wept is used 64 times, weep is used 50 times, cry is used 141 times, crying is used 32 times, and cried is used 124 times.  There are times when some of these words are in the same verse.  Crying can mean that someone is either upset or happy depending on the circumstance that they are crying over.  There is no use of any of these words in the first three chapters of Genesis and this is important to me because the fall happened in the third chapter of Genesis so there was no weeping when things were perfect, before sin.  In Revelations 21:4 we read:  “and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.’”  The first things have passed away refer to the destruction of the heavens and the earth by the Lord.  This takes place after the 1000 year reign of Jesus Christ on the earth and after all of the judgments are completed.  At this point the New Jerusalem and new earth are seen and so everything is perfect again after this point and the verse says there will be no more mourning, or crying, or pain, so this is the last time we see any of these types of words in the Scripture.

                According to the people who study the Bibles, who are scholars of the Bible the first time that a word is found in the Scriptures is important.  Genesis 4:10 is the earliest any of these words are found and the verse reads as follows, “He said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground.”  This of course is speaking of Abele’s blood and the killing of Abel by his brother Cain.

                The word laugh is used only twelve times in the Scriptures.  Laughter is used only eight times.  Happy is only used fourteen times in the Bible and only once in the NT.  I suppose that we may be able to conclude that there is more unhappiness four in the Scriptures than happiness, for there are more words to describe the emotions of sadness than gladness in the Bible.  I would also suppose that sin is the reason for these findings. 

                As I glanced over these verses I find that there were times when people were crying over things that caused them emotional pain that could be described as something not worth crying or weeping over, “Eze. 8:14  Then He brought me to the entrance of the gate of the LORD’S house which was toward the north; and behold, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz.”  This meant that these women were worshiping idols in the house of the Lord.

                Now in today’s verse we see Nehemiah weeping because the walls of Jerusalem had not been rebuilt and also the people were in great distress.  Nehemiah knew that the walls were important to those who lived there for safety reasons and these walls were supposed to be completed before.  In the book of Ezra regarding the building of the walls one of the commentaries said that they could have already been built and then torn down again by and enemy.  That may have been the case or they may have never been finished at all. 

                When you look at the statement that Dr. Wiersbe makes that says the character of a person can be seen by what they cry about shows that Nehemiah surely had great character for he was weeping over things that would be upsetting to the Lord.

                Spiritual meaning for my life today:  As I look at the way that weeping or wept is used in the Gospels I can say that most of the times if is used because of sin.  The results of sin can surely cause weeping and unhappiness.  What I take away from this is that I need to be more sensitive to sin in my life.  Not only when I sin, but when I see sin like in the case of Nehemiah’s weeping, for it was sin that caused the children of Israel to be defeated in the first place, and that is why they were in the position that they were in at that time and it caused Nehemiah emotional pain.

My Steps of Faith for Today:

1.       Be more sensitive over my sin and sin that I see, because God is.

2.       Psalm 130:23-24

3.       Continue to learn contentment.

7/26/2011 9:35:37 AM