We'll begin our reading in verse one, Revelation chapter 21, verse one. Let's hear the Lord's word. And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea. And I, John, saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them and be their God. 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, for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, write, for these words are true and faithful. And he said unto me, it is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is a thirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone. which is the second death. Amen, God bless the reading of his word to our hearts for his name's sake. Let's bow our heads in prayer, let's seek the Lord together, let's all pray. Eternal God and Father in heaven, in that precious and mighty name of Jesus Christ, we come once again to the throne, confessing our need of thee, our need of the power of thy spirit, to be born along in the preaching and the hearing of thy word. Close us in with thyself, corral the wandering thoughts, take weariness of flesh away, revive the inner man and the outer man, we pray. May this be a time when we sense the Lord has once again come close to us, sat down beside us, has spoken a word not only in our ears but to our hearts. May it be a word that will change us, that will challenge us, that will give us something more, a sight of this one called the Lamb of God, how precious he is. And it's his name we pray, amen and amen. The man that will introduce us into the message this morning was a black slave. His name was John Jasper. That's a name that I gather the majority of Christians would not even recognize today. But if you had been living in the South, Southeast, in the latter part of the 1800s, especially in Virginia. That name would have been as recognized in the Christian community as that of Stonewall Jackson or Robert E. Lee. John Jasper was a slave for 50 years. And 25 of those 50 years, he was also a preacher. When the war between the states resulted in the abolition of slavery, He was, for the next 30 years, the pastor of 6th Mount Zion Baptist Church in Richmond, Virginia. Somebody asked him one time why he called it 6th Mount Zion Baptist Church. Was it because there had been five before that? Jasper, in his own inimitable way, said, no, we just like the name. As his biographer put it, I quote him now, he was the antebellum preacher, the last of his type, and we shall not look upon his like again. You'll understand the uniqueness of this black preacher when you discover that the writer of his biography was a white preacher. Remember the time period now. He was a white preacher who, out of the highest admiration for John Jasper, went to hear him preach every Sunday afternoon in his church for 20 years. Old John Jasper pastored a great church. He was speaking to his congregation one day on heaven and the joys that will await the Lord's people when they cross over Jordan. He tried to describe its beauties and its surpassing joys, its unspeakable glories. His vivid imagination, which if you've ever read any of his sermons, you will know Jasper had a very vivid imagination. But that imagination just, and the emotions were so great, he got to a place as he's describing glory that his mouth wouldn't just work in tandem with his mind. He just couldn't describe it, what he was feeling. He tried several times as this large crowd was just waiting for him to go on. He tried again, but the words wouldn't come. Then they saw the tears began to roll down his cheeks as he kept trying to put into words What he saw in his mind and felt in his heart, he couldn't make a sound. So he reaches in his pocket and he pulls out this big old handkerchief and began just to wipe away the tears. It wouldn't stop falling. Finally, he shook his hand to the crowd and waved them back to the exit, like, go on home. I can't finish this. The people didn't budge. He tried again to speak. But the tears kept falling. And he just couldn't get the words. He walked back to the side of the pulpit, put his hand on the door that would lead him to his study, and looked back, and as if saying, go on now. But he didn't leave. His handkerchief, go on, go on. Seeing they wouldn't leave, he finally composed himself enough to walk back to the edge of the pulpit and leaning over it, he said something like this, I'm just using the words of the biographer, and if you ever come across this paperback book, get it, just get it. He writes in this, how can I put it, the lingo of the black preacher of that day. As Jasper finally is able to speak to his congregation. He says, brothers and sisters, when I think of the glory which shall be revealed in us, I can visualize the day when old John Jasper's last battle has been fought and his last burden been laid down. I can visualize the day when this tired servant of God shall lay down his burdens and walk up to the battlements of the city of God. Then as I stand outside the gate, I can almost hear the mighty angel on guard say, John Jasper, you want your robe? I was gonna say, of course I want my robe, the robe of linen clean and white, which is the righteousness of the saints, but not now. Then the angel would say, John Jasper, you want your crown? I shall say, of course, mighty angel, I want all the reward that's coming to me, this poor black servant of the Lamb, but not now. And the angel would say, John Jasper, wouldn't you like to see Elijah, the great prophet who called down fire from heaven? Wouldn't you like to shake hands with John, the beloved disciple? Wouldn't you like to shake hands with Paul, that great apostle to the Gentiles, the greatest soul winner of all time? I'll say, of course, mighty angel. I want to know and to shake hands and to commune with all the great saints of olden times. And yes, I have some loved ones over there I want to see too, but not now. First, I want to see Massachusetts. I want to see him first of all. It's Jasper's tears, his handkerchief, and heaven, about which I want to speak to you this morning. My text is found in verse 4. 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, for the former things are passed away. That text tells us about the tears of Christ's people. It tells us something about what will make heaven heaven. But it also tells us something about what's very special to Christ. And if it's very special to Christ, it must be very special to us. My sermon title is The Day Christ Uses His Handkerchief for the Last Time. the day Christ uses his handkerchief for the last time. The thought of Christ using a handkerchief came to me many, many years ago when I was reading a list of sermon titles by the Scottish Covenanter Samuel Rutherford. He has a sermon entitled Christ's Handkerchief. This is not where my message came from, just the thought that Christ has a handkerchief. the day he'll use it for the last time. That's what this text is about. First, the tears of his people are precious to Christ. The tears of his people are precious to Christ. Compared to what could be told us, the word of God does not reveal very much about our heavenly state. We could take the words of the Queen of Sheba when she responded to seeing Solomon's kingdom. And we'd have to say about it when we see it, the half was not told us. As John watches this New Jerusalem descending from God out of heaven, he hears a great voice out of heaven. And the first thing that is told him is that Christ and His people will dwell together forever and ever and that He will be their God. That's the first thing that's told him. Now, the very first thing that Christ will do as their God is the voice of John says, wipe away all tears from the eyes of his people. That's first on the list. That tells me something. That tells me that Jesus Christ is very interested in our tears, that our tears are of great concern to him. Indeed, they are very precious to him. He thinks a lot about your tears. He holds them in deep regard and close to his heart. The picture that John is painting, if I can use the illustration, is like a soldier who's come home from a long, long battle. He suffered many a wound and even defeat. At times, that soldier in the heat of the battle felt he would never see home again. that he would die on the battlefield. Isn't that how we feel sometimes as soldiers in Christ's army? Going to make it home? Am I going to end up dying on the battlefield? But that soldier finally makes it home. And he, the picture that's being painted here in verse four, he walks up, you might say, to the door and his face is just covered with tears. But there at the door stands his father with a big handkerchief. And he just wipes away the tears of his son and is welcomed home. Good to see. I think too often we doubt this, that Christ is really deeply concerned about our tears. Why does he bring all the heartaches and all the disappointments and all the fiery trials into our lives? Indeed, why doesn't God just make us happy all the time? We're so much easier to live with when we're happy than when we're grieving and sad and upset and sorrowing. Why doesn't He just make us happy all the time? He could. There's nothing too hard for Him. Why does there have to be these events? that calls the people of God so many tears. If only, if only we knew the heart of Christ better than we do. If only we could lay hold of this truth and press it to our hearts that our tears, however silly others may think they are, however many they are, are precious to him. First on his list, I'm gonna wipe away their tears. David understood this truth about this, the value that God places on our tears in Psalm 56, verse eight. He says, put thou my tears into thy bottle, are they not in thy book? Two things being said by David in that text about our tears. Number one, they are collected in God's bottle. Of course, he's a poet, right? This is poetic language. And in this poetic language, the spirit of God who's inspired these words, this poetic language is showing, listen, these tears of yours, David, are precious to the Lord. So precious they're put into a bottle. The reference there is to the crematory, which in that day and time, the tears of loved ones who had lost someone, they caught them in a little bottle, preserved them. And that's what he's describing here. So David has been weeping many tears, and in the place of prayer, he alludes to the Lord catching his tears in his bottle because he knew they were precious to him. I would infer from David's words that Christ never lets our tears fall to the ground without noticing, as if they weren't precious to him. He catches them all and puts them in his bottle and never forgets them. We have shed many tears, you and I, over many years. Tears over things that we have forgotten all about. but God hasn't forgotten one of them. We just don't know the Lord like we could and like we should. They're also written in God's book. Are they not written in my book? What's he saying? Well, there are several books, you know. There is God's book of purposes. By that I mean these things that bring about these tears are all part of God's purpose for us. That's part of his plan. These things that cause us to weep, that bring such anguish and hours and hours of weeping, gushing, were all part of what he intended. Nothing happens by chance. God's purpose determines the kind of tears they're going to be and the quantity and the quality of those tears. Are they genuine tears? Are they crocodile tears? How long will they last? How long will I weep? What purpose are they going to serve? You see, the Lord always has a purpose in making us weep. There's also God's book of Providence. They're written there. All our tears are overruled and made to work for our good and his glory, as we like to say. It's not pointless weeping. God will better be glorified by our tears than by our laughter than we'd be better off weeping. If our weeping actually does us more good spiritually than all the joking and the laughter, then it's better that we weep. Better to go to the house of mourning than not Solomon's day. The place of laughter and partying. We don't like it. But it's part of God's providential care of his people. There's also God's book of remembrance. He knows that they need to fall and everyone shall fall and not exceed the limit. He remembers, my brother, my sister, what made you weak this week. He's never forgotten one time when you were upon your knees before him and you were crying your eyes out. He saw you when you were sitting there listening to a sermon and the tears began to fill your eyes and roll down your cheeks and you tried to quickly brush them away, not wanting someone to see that you're weeping. But he saw it. He saw the tears fill up. and he remembers. That certainly must mean that every one of your tears are precious to Christ. Don't try to have that stiff upper lip as if weeping is somehow a silly sign of weakness. We read that Christ is touched with the feeling of our infirmities because he was in all points tempted like as we are. He is moved by our tears. Indeed God, and I say this reverently, the Lord was not able to weep until he became a man. He didn't have eyes to cry. And Christ wept with Mary and Martha at the grave of their brother Lazarus. He'll weep with you at the grave when your spouse dies. or your child dies, or your mother and father dies. Christ wept with them. He understands. Oh, he understands. Christ wept over the city of Jerusalem. And Christ wept with strong cryings and tears, the Bible says, in Gethsemane. He knows exactly what it's like to have a heart so full of sorrow that it brings about these unabashed tears. And therefore he understands when our tears, what they're all about, and they move his hand because they move his heart. Hezekiah, you recall, 1 Kings chapter 20, was sick unto death. Isaiah tells him, prepare to die. He turns his face to the wall and he prays to the Lord. And before Isaiah gets home, God says, go back to Hezekiah, you tell him this, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears, behold, I will heal thee. He just did not say, I have heard thy prayer, therefore I will heal thee. He adds this point, I saw your tears. and answer to your prayer and your tears, I am going to heal you. It moved his hand because they moved his heart. Never ever think that your tears are silly, but they're not cherished by Christ. My second thought is this. In this world, this side of glory, we have constant need for Christ's handkerchief. We have constant need for Christ's handkerchief. Our text makes that implication. There is no wiping away of all tears until we reach heaven. So between now and heaven, there will be many tears. To the youngest person here, you have, as long as you live, ahead of you, years of times of weeping. And to you who are in the latter stage of your life, the same applies. You'll weep many a time before you go to the grave. So I conclude. Until that day comes, the Lord will have to make much use of his handkerchief. We will need the Lord to wipe away in the first place tears that flow because of our sins. We all have to confess Peter's experience where he wept bitterly over his sin, over his failure, is something we understand. How often we've come to the Lord in tears and we've asked Him to forgive us for the use of our tongues, for our coldness of heart. With tears we've asked Him to forgive us for our prayerlessness, for not trusting Him. For our hellish pride that lifted up its head when it should have taken a humble place. For our anger we lashed out at someone we love. For the lust of our heart and the lust of the eyes we've wept many times. I understand, the older I get, more and more those words of Horatius Bonner in that hymn, No, Not Despairingly. Ah, he wrote, mine iniquity, crimson has been, infinite, infinite sin upon sin, sin of not loving thee, sin of not trusting thee, infinite sin. That's how he felt his sin was. It can't be infinite, of course, but that's how he felt. So many, so many, so many. This is Bonner, one of the great preachers of Scotland. Godly. And through our sins, we lose touch with the Lord. And we grieve the Holy Spirit and we quench his work in our lives. And we weigh our own souls down with guilt, and with guilt there is misery, and so because of the guilt and the misery and the shame, and we feel the conviction of it all, we weep and we weep and we weep again and again, tears of sadness, tears of repentance. Surely you've been there, surely you've been there. And the Lord, would it not be your testimony, would you not be able to stand up and say, if I gave you the opportunity, Pastor Wagner, every time that's happened, Christ has come with his handkerchief and he's wiped away my tears. Blessed be his name. We tell him, he said to us, you're forgiven. Go and sin no more. But sin again we do. And the tears began to flow again. There's also tears that come from our storms, storms of life. We don't like storms. We would if we could have it sunny every day in our life. But God knows what's better for us. And so he sends the clouds and the wind and the thunder and the lightning and the rain. And when he does that, our little ships are tossed to and fro and we are afraid that we're gonna sink. We come to that place mentioned by the psalmist, I believe it's Psalm 107, we're at our wit's end. It's so bad. We can't see a way forward. We expect the worst to happen. And we tell the Lord through our tears, Master, don't you care that we perish? Don't you see? Don't you see the heart that's breaking? I was sitting at the table of my daughter and son-in-law just last week, finishing the meal, talking about his business. Phone rang, cell phone rang, picked it up. I could see by his countenance something was wrong. One of his employees said his name, just been found dead in a hunting accident. Young man, great worker. He lost his finger about a year ago on the machine that he worked for. Now he's found dead. He tripped and fell. His own rifle shot him through. The kicker is his wife's second child was due the following Wednesday. Why? Oh, a storm for believers. A little two-year-old who will never see that dad again. Now the little baby's there and there's no father. No life insurance policy. That's a storm. Carest thou not that we perish? You've said the same thing, maybe not those words, but it's been the same feeling. Don't you see, Lord? Why are you not changing things? And right when we are, we think the breaking point, Jesus comes. And with his handkerchief, he dries away the tears. Every time. I'm 68 now. Most of my life is behind me. And I can testify, he's always come with his handkerchief to me. Always. Sometimes it's a storm of bodily affliction. Dark turns of providence. Like in that young family's home. Storms at home in the marriage. Or with the children. Storms at the workplace. storms at church, perplexities, you don't understand what the Lord is doing. And then there's the silence that comes from heaven. And because we get so focused on the storm, we somehow have forgotten about The Lord's, what the old saints would call his love letters. I, can I share a secret? I have a plastic bin under my bed. I have every letter that Kim wrote me when we were dating. Love letters. Sometimes I'll pull that out and just read them. Sometimes we lose sight of the Lord's love letters. We forget what he's told us so many times through his word. He hasn't forgotten you. He hasn't, he's not trying to do you harm. He's always about your good. He's always out to benefit you. Whatever he sends, It's always the Lord's, I'm for you, I'm not against you. And he's told us that so many times. And when we get so focused on the storms, we forget all about those love letters. But then, you know what happens? Jesus comes. And he reminds us of the love letters. And it's all good again. It's all good again. He loves me. It's okay. It's all right. It's all I need to know he loves me. It's all good. There's also tears that come from separation. And by that I mean death. It comes to us all. Death. You'll lose that spouse. You'll lose that child. You'll lose that mom, that dad. You'll lose that sibling. It will come. And you will weep. We have need of the Lord's handkerchief. You're going to need it. What I have found, there is no human being that can wipe away my tears. No one. For all their attempts, all the kind words, and they're appreciated, but no human has ever been able to wipe away the tears that come as a result of death. that my Lord has, and he'll do the same for you. There's also tears that come because of souls, lost souls. You may have children that are lost, and you weep for them. You've shed many a tear. The Lord would bring back to their memories what they were taught as little children all throughout their childhood years. He would save them. With tears, you've wanted to see the family circle join together in heaven one day. Perhaps there's a spouse that's lost, makes life very difficult when one is saved and one isn't. You prayed for that spouse, wept for that spouse, a brother or a sister, a parent. They're blind. And they're headed for a Christless eternity if the Lord doesn't save them. And you know it. And so you weep. Samuel Rutherford said this, tears will follow us to heaven. Under the very entry of the door, our face shall be wet. That says a lot. Therefore, the best place to go with your tears, brothers and sisters, is to Christ because he is the great tear wiper. He has all kinds of ways of doing this, you know, of wiping away our tears. One of the ways is he will dry our tears is by bringing us to that place where we are completely resigned to his will, whatever that will might be. You see, the problem is many, many times when the reason we're weeping so much is we don't like His will and we don't want His will. It's contradictory to what we want and what we like, and so we cry. I don't want this, Lord. You know when the crying stops? When you say, Lord, I will be done. If this is your will, I bow. I'm not going to throw a temper tantrum. I'm not going to be crying and crying and crying. This is what you want. I resign myself to it. Now the Lord's got to bring you there. You cannot bring yourself there. But that's one of the ways that Jesus Christ actually wipes away the tears. He brings us to a place spiritually where in our hearts we are resigned to His will, whatever that will is. We stop kicking against the pricks. We stop the crying. It's over. Lord, this is what you want. There's peace then. Christ will also dry our tears by making us, bringing us to that place where we look away from the secondary cause of our tears and look to the first cause as to God, what he's going to accomplish through the very thing that's making us weep. It's an important lesson to learn and relearn. It's easy to get caught up looking at the secondaries. This or that is why I'm crying. No, it's not. Let's get our eyes off of the secondary and remember God's book of purposes, his plans. So this has been brought to pass in my life for my own good, for my own blessing, for my own benefit. It's gonna help me. It's gonna help my family. It's gonna help my church. It's gonna help the work of God. I'm going to be better for it. I'm going to be more useful because of it." We'll remember Romans 8.28 in a way we hadn't before. He's making this work together for good, and these tears are going to be a big help. Okay. Thanks, Lord. You died them up. I'm good to go now. The Lord will also wipe away our tears in life by sometimes just taking away the very thing that's causing the weeping. Sometimes he does that. It was this, because of this, we are wept, and the Lord will just wonderfully step in. He did that, you know, for Martha and Mary. They were weeping because their brother Lazarus was dead, and guess what? Christ came and brought him back from the dead. But that's not usually what he does. That's number one on our list. Take the thing away now that's causing me to weep. That's down the list with Christ. There's more important things. But brothers and sisters, most of all, Christ dries our tears in this way, by bringing us into close communion with himself. That's how he normally dries the tears. He brings us into close communion with himself. And he reminds us of this truth. Listen, you're still mine. I still love you. You're not going to perish. I have got this. You're going to be fine. And I am with you through it all. You get that in close communion You don't enjoy that by walking at a distance from the Lord, careless about your communion with Him, careless about the place of prayer, careless about the Word of God. Don't you see that because there's been this carelessness about the place of prayer, now the Lord has brought the tears and you find yourself on your knees before Him, crying to Him. Ah, ah, that's what I'm after, Christ says. You just got away from me. You forgot about me. You went on chasing something else. Something else took your love and took your attention. And I brought this into your life because I want you close to me. But it's like a light goes on when we're there weeping before him. Now, now, what a difference it is. Closed communion. Third and final thought. There's coming a day when Christ will use his handkerchief for the last time. So God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. It doesn't say many tears. It doesn't say most tears. It doesn't say just for the time being, but he'll wipe away all tears forever. Now, I don't know about you, but When I look at that verse, thinking about it, it seems strange. Doesn't it seem strange? He will wipe away all tears from our eyes. What's strange about it? I can't do a Q&A right now, but it'd be a Sunday school class I would. Why is this strange? Why would I think it's strange? It would wipe away all tears from our eyes. Strange because I think, you would think that our regret for sin would only grow deeper when we're made perfect. Our regret for sin is flawed right now, really flawed, because we're imperfect. But then we'll be perfect. We'll see the enormity of sin for what it is in a way we can't see it now, but we won't cry over it. The tears are gone. It's strange because we're perfect, clear, that the suffering of Christ on Calvary, you would think we see it so clearly now, it would make us weep. We do not see that, we do not understand that now as we will then. But all tears will be gone. Strange because being made aware, and I would think the memory doesn't get wiped when we get to heaven. the many opportunities we had to serve the Lord in some way and we didn't do it. You would think you'd weep over that. Then there's hearts that'll be made perfectly tender, perfectly tender, no hardness about us. I mean, the Lord is full of compassion. He's full of pity. but there will be no tear wet over any lost loved one that has ended up in God's hell. There will be no tears. They're wiped away. Isn't it revelation where you find the smoke of hell ascending in the same breath and the people of God saying hallelujah? It's hard to get that, isn't it? The problem is we're just thinking differently now about God's justice. This is God's wrath falling upon Christ-haters, Christ-rejecters, sinners. God is satisfied. We'll be changed. It's strange. There's no tears. No tears in heaven. the sureness of this truth. It's as certain as the throne of God. Well, three reasons. The source of all sorrow is removed. By that I mean sin is gone. The sins, no more. Satan, has been condemned to hell himself, back in chapter 20, verse 10, he's been cast to the lake of fire, no more to trouble us, no more temptations that we fall prey to, therefore no more weeping. Ah, can't wait, can't wait, looking for that day when we'll see him cast into the lake of fire. At the top of my lungs I'll be shouting hallelujah, praise the Lord, he's done. We won. Sickness is gone. The former things are passed away forever. The source of all joy remains. He said unto me, verse six, I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is a thirst of the fountain of water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit all things and I will be his God and he shall be my son. And so shall we ever be with the Lord. To be forever in the presence of Christ, I can't imagine. Sinless, happy all the time. You sourpusses are going to have a total great awakening one day. I can't wait to see it. Joy unspeakable. Dry eyes forever. That's the day when Christ uses his handkerchief for the last time. It's put away forever. So, what's the end all? as you look at whatever's ahead of you. It's okay. You know how this ends. Don't you fret. Go ahead and cry. It's all right. It's good. But you know how it ends. Isn't that great? I sure hope you lot are saying amen in your hearts right now. Isn't that great? Let's bow our heads in prayer. Let's seek the Lord. Father, we thank Thee for saving us. We know what would have happened if Thou hadst not chosen us. We would have been left to our sin and sorrow. with no one to wipe our tears but ourselves or frail mankind. But in making us thine own children, thou has given us Christ as the one who wipes away our tears. And we are, Lord, looking for that day when we will see him face to face. And he will wipe away all tears from our eyes. Looking forward to it, Lord. May he come quickly. Until that time. Give us, oh God, those hearts that live close to thee. We'll be able to testify. When I was in the valley of gloom, weeping my heart out, Jesus came to me. and he wiped away my tears. Dismiss us now with thy fear and favor upon us. In Christ's name we pray. Amen and amen.