Lam 1:16    This is why I weep and my eyes overflow with tears.

 

Why look at a verse like this? Because it is there! This is Jeremiah explaining why he was weeping. Jerusalem had been utterly destroyed, the walls had been burnt down and broken down and the Temple had been razed to the ground. The place on earth of meeting between God and His chosen people had been removed. Almost any other response than weeping would have been inappropriate. It was for him a most devastating thing to have happened. Yes, he knew it was God's will, and yes he knew that within seventy years they would be restored to the Lord, but in the meantime, the destruction of Jerusalem and the removal of the Temple were horrifying indicators of the awfulness and stupidity of sin in the human race and particularly in Israel.

 

What, we might ask ourselves, are we moved by, the bad things that happen in our world today? Jesus was moved by compassion a number of times in the Gospels, even moved to tears. How about us? Are we moved by the godlessness of our nation? Are we moved by the absence of godliness even in the church? Are we moved when we hear of great spiritual men falling to temptation and dishonouring the Name they have served for so long? When I heard of the fall of one such man I was close to, I wept for a month. Weeping is appropriate at times. It is a sign of being moved by understanding the awfulness of what is taking place. Never be afraid to weep for such things.