Jesus wept, have you wept?

Good morning to all that are listening. I hope that each one has prayed that God would quieten their hearts of all the troubles and trials of the past week to hear His word.  Allow the Lord to take your hand. Don’t withdraw it. When I am led by the Master’s great hand, then I will have peace with the Lord and His people who have also placed their hands into His, who have said: ‘Not my will, but Yours Lord’. Then we will be able to be messengers of peace and fulfil the task that God has for us.

Maybe you have plans for your life here on earth, from now till the end of your life it is all mapped out, you want to die when you have achieved this, that and the other. You know who you are and what you aim to be. Possibly you want people to call you “sir”, “doctor” or “lawyer”. Are you a doctor for heaven? A lawyer for heaven? You have your funeral plan in order. You have your life annuity all set in place, making sure that your bank account is in the green each month, so that one day you’ll have a comfortable retirement.

If you put your hand into His, the possibility exists that He may draw a line through your plans because He wants you in Heaven one day, not just with a good retirement and then a good casket to be buried in. His plans are much more glorious and eternal. The founder of this mission said he would rather eat mud than to lose God and His plan,  God taking his hand, leading him every step of the way.

However, if you have achieved something in this world, then use it to God’s glory and the furtherance of His Gospel, so that one day when you get there you won’t say, ‘Oh I wasted my time. I was so concerned about my outward appearance, but forgot to look at how I appear before God’.

We sing a song with these words: ‘My heart, Lord, longs for you’, which has been ringing in me and thus I’d like to share what has been exercising my heart these last few days.

We are getting closer to Easter where we remember how Jesus came to earth to fulfill His commission, the work of the Cross, going through His passion, His suffering for us. In Isaiah 53:4 it is written.... we reckoned him to be stricken, smitten by God.

Isaiah wrote, we thought Him smitten of God. So we can claim: God let it happen, God prepared the way of the Cross for Him, it was God’s doing and I had nothing to do with it. But the Bible says, it was for me, for my sake that He was smitten and He had to take up that Cross, and not only the Cross, the Bible says  He was a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, rejected by men. That was His life. For Himself, for God’s sake? No, it was for our sakes, because of my sin, my evil nature, that is why He suffered.

God had prepared the Garden of Eden for man to live in. And His creation was without sin and creatures enjoyed God’s company, comfort and peace. What a wonderful place that must be, where there is no sin! Satan was not pleased with it. Remember if you love sin, the fallen angel, Satan himself, who has come to rob, destroy and kill, is at work in you, and you allow it because you like it. Through deception, discussion, conversation, arguing, eventually Eve called that which was disobedience to God, fine. It looked so nice, so she decided to taste it.

Think carefully before you say, I fell into sin, is that really so? Consider how you thought backwards and forwards before doing what you did. Don’t be too quick to blame the devil because it is probably you and your sinful, lustful self. Call yourself the sinner, don’t blame the devil.  Have you ever seen yourself as a rotten sinner?

As Christians, our senses must be under the control of Christ, otherwise one will sin. Jesus was not crucified by heathens, the Roman soldiers did the dirty work of the religious leaders who called for His crucifixion. Yet it was my sin that caused Jesus to be a Man of sorrows. Because of my sin, He was a man acquainted with grief.

The other day I was in the house where my father lived. And then suddenly I was overcome by grief. But just as quick, I thought of the Man of sorrows. And I thought how much isn’t He grieving? Is He maybe still grieving because of our lives? He says, I gave My life that they might live, but they are dead.

We can go to the cemetery and see where loved ones are buried, and we can weep, but they are dead, they won’t come to life again. Maybe Jesus has got His cemetery. Is your name and grave there?  He is weeping because you are dead. Rest in peace, he was taken too soon – all the glorious words written on tombstones. And I am a Christian, born-again, saved, but Jesus walks among the tombstones and He weeps, because I am dead. You have locked yourself in your casket with your secrets. Or you polish yourself, you are the ‘best’ Christian, but Jesus sees you in the tomb and He is walking in the cemetery of those for whom He has died. You sing in the church and at conferences. Nobody claps their hands as loud as you do, and you say, Glory! Hallelujah! But Jesus doesn’t hear that because your sin blocks Him from hearing that. Don’t call ‘glory!’ to Him if you are sitting in your tomb of sin.

Sin should make you sick because it deceives Christians. Non-believers, bad drunkards, and mockers aren’t deceived as Christians are. No, Christians are deceived by sin. You as a believer say, oh sin is so powerful and attractive. All the world’s enticements excite the flesh. And it gives you unbelievable courage! If sin calls you, even if it is 12 o’clock at night you will climb out of the window, climb over a 2 metre fence, to do what you want to do. Satan sees the danger of your soul being drawn to your Creator, to your Saviour. And he holds you in bondage, in his prison of self-gratification. That is why the Lord sent His anointed, to set the captives free. He sent His anointed One to set me free. Have you said, Yes, Lord – I am in bondage, I am bound in sin.

Luke 19:41 Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it

Which city was this? Jerusalem, where the temple of God was. Where God’s presence was to be found. He saw the city, He saw the state in which it was and it made Him weep.

Why? Because of what His people had made of that city. Our churches should be places where we gather to meet with God. Not social gatherings, coffee shops, times of amusement and entertainment. No, the music there should have the heartbeat of Jesus.  Our churches shouldn’t be fashion catwalks where people want to compete with each other. Imagine such a thing in the House of God.

On the subject of music. Children if you don’t hear good music in the home, ask your parents: ‘Mom, can’t we switch off the TV for a while? I want to hear music that will draw me closer to heaven. Or, Mom, I am sick and tired of wagging my buttocks because of this music’. If you want to dance in church, then let everybody see that this man, his dance is inspired by Jesus and we are all brought closer to the Lord because of his dance, but don’t bring the dance of the world into the church. You are spoiling the house of God and you are the cause of Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. When He went into that temple he turned over their tables, scattered their money; money matters is trouble for the church.

Verse 42  saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.

Are those things hidden from your eyes? Have you wept before the Lord and said, Lord here am I, I see my sinfulness, my outward garb has shown me how sinful I am within, my heart is corrupted by the ways of the world. If you haven’t wept and have felt those hot tears of Jesus, His grief, your heart will remain as hard as it is and you will stay like this till your dying day; in your self gratification and taking for granted that the preacher will bury you and call you blessed.

Can’t you cry and say, ‘Lord it is long enough that I have rejected you. I always saw the faults of others, but now I realise my sinful state and Your tears for me’. Your true repentance will wipe His tears for you away, especially as He knows how near your end is. You may claim that you are a believer for so many years, but your faith is just in your mind, not your heart. That is why you speak such words and give such looks, why you listen to foul talk or watch evil videos. You drink in the filth and yet you say you belong to Jesus.

We want to celebrate Easter in the next weeks, thanking Jesus for being the sacrifice. You cannot do that in truth if your heart hasn’t been transformed and healed. May your heart be grieved and may you weep about your sins.

Just recently I was speaking to a young boy. I told him that the Bible says that God is close to those who are of a contrite and a broken spirit. Do you want to be close to God? Find the recipe in this book (the Bible).

When Jesus hung on the Cross, all the devil’s forces and Satan were armed to the teeth and started celebrating. They thought that they had finally conquered the Messiah, King of the Jews, the friend of sinners, the One who was to bring salvation into this world, now we have Him on the cross, when He’s dead the world will belong to us. Even God in heaven has made Him sin, finally we will reverse all those that have been forgiven. But they were wrong.

When Jesus was stabbed in His side, blood and water flowed out. According to science, this is a sign that He died of a broken heart. He knows what it means to have a broken heart, that is why He is close to those of a broken heart. He also called out that is finished, His work was done.

Allow your heart to be broken, not only once, as often as possible if that will keep you from sinning. That should cure your heart from hardness, and it will become a heart that pleases God. Shouldn’t this be your day where you say, God, here is my heart, I weep over my self.

Years ago in the 1980s, I heard voices coming out of the kiwi plantations where people were weeping to God, crying for mercy. But I also heard someone praying there: ‘Oh Lord please give me a car, a red, smart one, I need this car to proclaim the Gospel’. What a hypocrite, to have your own dreams and wishes mixed into living a life devoted to Christ. You have not seen Jesus weeping over you until His heart broke on the Cross if you have such an attitude and such wishes.

I can’t see how we can get into heaven without having had an experience where our hearts were broken and we grieve. Let there be tears and sorrow for the wrong you have done. Billy Graham said, when I started preaching people came forward with tears to accept Christ, but nowadays they come with a smile on their faces. No wonder they are a Christian today and a vagabond tomorrow. When things don’t go their way they are sullen and unkind, you can just see it written on their faces, Christ is not there.

We are getting closer to Easter, and you will remember the Lord’s suffering and unite yourself with His body and with His blood, if the Lord pleases that we should partake of the Lord’s Supper. Make sure you are united with Him, don’t make it a circus by claiming you are part of Him, but you don’t feel what He feels, don’t see and hear what He sees and hears. Don’t be a stranger to Him and then proclaim you belong to the Bride of Christ. Prepare your heart so that He can number you with His true disciples to whom  He had said, I have longed to eat this meal with you. He desires to visit you in your home, in your room because there He has a home. He knows that the words that are spoken are sweet, He even says He loves to sit at the table where you eat.

S Khumalo closed in prayer