The people of Israel had been enslaved for hundreds of years in Egypt. The time for their deliverance had come, and God sent Moses to lead the people out of Egypt after ten devastating plagues and by a mighty defeat of Pharaoh at the crossing of the Red Sea. They camped first at Marah. From Marah they moved to Elim. From Elim to Dophkah. From Dophkah to Alush. And from Alush to Rephidim (Numbers 33:8–15), where we meet them in this text.

According to Exodus 16:1, they entered this region only six weeks after their deliverance. It is as though everyone in this room had seen God divide the Red Sea with your own eyes on May 1, 2022. This generation of Israel in just the last months had seen some of the greatest miracles in the history of the world.

There are four scenes in Exodus 17:1–7. Every one of them is brimming with implications for your life. As we read the text, I’ll pause after each scene to see if we can summarize its main point.

Scene 1: A Waterless Camp

All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin [pronounced “seen,” a transliteration of the Hebrew proper name Siyn, with no reference to what we mean by “sin”] by stages, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. (Exodus 17:1)

Main point: God led his people to a campsite with no water.

This was his plan. He led them there. You can see this in middle of verse 1: they moved “by stages, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim” (Exodus 17:1). “By stages” means that there were two other stages between the wilderness of Sin and Rephidim (Dophkah and Alush). Moses makes no mention of them here because he has one point to make: God is commanding the movements of Israel (pillar of cloud by day, pillar of fire by night, Nehemiah 9:19), and his command brings them to Rephidim, which has significance for one reason in this story: there is no water to drink.

If you are a Christian, this is your life. God “works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Ephesians 1:11). “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that” (James 4:15). “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases” (Psalm 115:3). Hundreds of you came to this conference encamped at Rephidim — where there is no water. As far you can see it’s wilderness in every direction and, from a merely human standpoint, your circumstances are going to end badly. There is no human way out. And this text says: You are not there by accident. Your ways are ordered by the Lord (Proverbs 20:24). And one of the purposes of these seven verses, and this sermon, is to help you see and feel why that is good news.

So, the main point of Scene 1 is: God has led his people to a campsite with no water.

Scene 2: An Angry Protest

Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, ‘Give us water to drink.’ And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?’ But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, ‘Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” (Exodus 17:2–3)

Main point: God’s people did not trust that God’s providence is good, but accused Moses and God of harmful purposes.

In verse 2, the people take issue with Moses. Whatever is happening here — whatever it is — is not happening fast enough, and so they demand water. “Give us water to drink!” In essence Moses responds, “Your quarrel is out of place. It’s not a quarrel with me. When you quarrel with me you are trying God’s patience.” “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” (Exodus 17:2).

“Story after story after story in the Bible, including this one, is God’s roar from heaven: ‘Trust me.’”

Then in verse 3, we hear the heart of the indictment. They don’t ask, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt?” They ask, “Why did you bring us out to kill us and our children?” They aren’t questioning God’s timing. They are questioning his goodness. They aren’t saying that God is incompetent to give them water. They’re saying he doesn’t intend to. His purposes aren’t saving. They are murderous.

When Moses says, in verse 2, “Why do you test the Lord?” there’s a warning in those words. Don’t try God’s patience. It runs out for people who don’t trust him, who despise his ways. We know how the story of this generation ends.

None of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test [tried my patience] these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it. (Numbers 14:22–23)

We may not understand all the reasons why God chooses a waterless encampment for us. But story after story after story in the Bible, including this one, is God’s roar from heaven: “Trust me. Trust me.” They didn’t. That’s Scene 2.

Scene 3: A Life-Giving Presence

So Moses cried to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” And the Lord said to Moses, “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. (Exodus 17:4–6)

Main point: God’s life-giving presence toward absolutely undeserving people goes on. His patience has not run out. Not yet.

What is God’s answer to Moses’s question in verse 4, “What shall I do with this people they are almost ready to stone me”? His answer is, “I’m going to give them water to drink.” But to make it as amazing as possible, he describes four ways that this miracle of life-giving grace comes about.

First, the miracle will be public. “Pass on before the people” (Exodus 17:5). They indicted us in public. We will be vindicated in public, “before the people.”

Second, it will be well attested by the elders. “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel” (Exodus 17:5). This will become part of what they know and teach and how they judge the people.

Third, this miracle will be seen as a continuation of the miracles of the ten plagues in Egypt. “. . . and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go” (Exodus 17:5). Moses only struck the Nile once with his staff. “In the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants he lifted up the staff and struck the water in the Nile, and all the water in the Nile turned into blood” (Exodus 7:20). In other words, “With this staff I turned water into blood. Today I will turn a rock into water.” Same staff. Same power. Same God. Same grace. True then. True today in your waterless wilderness.

Lastly, this miracle of life-giving grace will come about by the Lord’s presence. This is best of all. This is most wonderful. “Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink” (Exodus 17:6). “I will stand before you on the rock.”

“God says ‘My presence is your life. I brought you out of Egypt to myself. You think you need water? You need me.’”

He might have said, “I’m done with this rebellious people” and withdrawn his presence. But he didn’t. And he might have said, “I will not defile my presence with this sinful people anymore. I will go to the top of mount Horeb and unleash my lightning bolt, and strike this rock and bring water from the depths of the earth.” But he didn’t do that either. He said, “When you strike the rock, I will be standing on the rock.”

Why would he do that? Because what the people need more than water is the presence of God. The steadfast love of the Lord is better than life (Psalm 63:3). What, after all, has been the point of God choosing the people of Israel, making a covenant with her, leading her down to Egypt, bringing her out by a mighty hand, and taking her out into the wilderness? Here’s the way God says it in Exodus 19:4–5:

You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples. (Exodus 19:4–5)

He is saying, “I am taking my stand on the rock that will give you life, because my presence is your life. I brought you out of Egypt to myself. You think you need water? You need me.”

So the main point of Scene 3 is: God’s life-giving presence toward undeserving people goes on. His patience has not run out.

Scene 4: A Memorial of Failure

And he [Moses] called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the Lord by saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?” (Exodus 17:7)

Main point: Moses memorializes their failure to believe in God’s saving presence.

The story does not have a happy ending. There is no repentance. There is no awakened faith. There’s not even any water, just a promise of water. “The people will drink” (Exodus 17:6). No doubt the water came. God keeps his word. But Moses means for the story to end on a note of failure: Israel’s failure, not God’s.

Moses doesn’t name the place “Grace abounding,” or “Water from the Rock,” or “God is faithful.” He names it Massah and Meribah. Massah means “testing.” Meribah means “quarreling.” Then he makes the meaning explicit: “. . . because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the Lord” (Exodus 17:7).

Scene 4 harks back to Scene 2 where Moses said, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” (Exodus 17:2) And that’s where the story ends — memorializing Israel’s quarreling and testing — almost. Moses has one final indictment at the end of verse 7. He means for us to see the greatest failure in the light of the greatest gift. So verse 7 ends, “They tested the Lord by saying, “Is the Lord among us or not” (Exodus 17:7). God had said, “I will stand before you on the rock” (Exodus 17:6). The people said, “We don’t even know if he’s here or if he intends to kill us.”

Don’t Harden Your Heart

So, we step back now and ask, “What is Moses’s aim — God’s aim — in telling us this story?” The way Moses tells the story, failure is foregrounded. The story begins and ends with Israel quarreling with Moses and testing God. It begins and ends with unbelief. They don’t trust God. They harden their hearts against him. “God brought us into this waterless encampment and he doesn’t intend to be here for us.” And the trumpet blast of this text, echoing throughout the Bible and today, is: Don’t be like that.

“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work” (Psalm 95:7–9).

“Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years’” (Hebrews 3:7–9).

“[They] all ate the same spiritual food [manna], and all drank the same spiritual drink. . . . Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. . . . We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did. . . . Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction. . . . Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:3–12).

In other words, this failure of Israel to trust God in the wilderness reverberates through the whole Bible. And the message is: “When God brings you into a waterless encampment, and you see wilderness stretching in every direction with no way out, don’t be like Israel! Trust him. Trust him. He brought you into the wilderness. He can bring you out. He led you to Rephidim where there is no water. There’s only a dry rock. And he will take his stand on the rock and be your life.”

Will he? Even in 2022?

Confidence for Waterless Campsites

For many of us, the great obstacle to joyful confidence in the waterless wilderness is not that God can’t save us, but the question, “Will he?” And the great obstacle to believing that he will is our sin. How can God be a just and holy God, and do what he did in Scene 3?

Surrounded by a thankless people who say that God brought them out of Egypt to kill them, God says, “Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock . . . and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink” (Exodus 17:6). How can God be righteous and act as though the despising of his name had so little consequence? Our very hearts cry out, “I have scorned the name of the Lord, in all my doubting and all my unbelief and all my despairing in my wilderness. Will God not simply join me in the belittling of his name by sweeping my sins under the rug of the universe? How can I ever be saved — how could they ever be saved — by a righteous and holy God?”

In the mind of the apostle Paul, there was no greater problem facing humankind. How can God uphold the righteousness of his name while showing mercy to God-belittling, God-despising sinners? How is Scene 3 in this passage even conceivable? God offering himself as our life while surrounded by the outrage of people indicting him as evil?

Paul has an answer to this greatest of all moral problems. I’ll read it you from Romans 3:25:

God put [Christ] forward as a propitiation (a satisfaction of God’s justice) by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

Thunderclap of Justice and Mercy

When God passed over the sins of Scene 2 and Scene 4 and poured out mercy on sinners in Scene 3, was he unrighteous? Was he belittling his own name? Was he taking his holiness lightly? No. Because he knew what he would do in 1,400 years to vindicate his righteousness.

“The death of Jesus is a thunderclap of this truth: No sin is ever merely passed over! Ever.”

The death of Jesus is a thunderclap of this truth: No sin is ever merely passed over! Ever. It will be paid for in hell. Or it was paid for on the cross. No quarreling with God’s word, no testing of God’s patience, ever goes unpunished. Ever. God’s righteousness is absolute. And the unspeakable mercy of Scene 3 (Exodus 17:6) is owing directly to the blood of Jesus. “[The blood of the Son of God] was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins” (Romans 3:25).

Every undeserved blessing shown to God’s elect in the Old Testament was bought by the blood of Jesus. When Paul made that strange statement in 1 Corinthians 10:4 about Israel in the wilderness, “They drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:4), this is what I think he meant:

The undeserved blessing of water from the rock, the undeserved blessing of manna from heaven, the undeserved blessing of deliverance at the Red Sea, the undeserved blessing of guidance day and night in the wilderness are all owing to cross of Christ. How right it is, then, to say, the rock was Christ, the manna was Christ, the deliverance was Christ, the pillars of guidance were Christ, because God’s guilty people could enjoy none of that without the blood of Christ.

And so it is for you who are in Christ. You who despair of your sinful selves and know that God owes you nothing. So it is for you. Every undeserved blessing you will ever receive is owing to the death of Christ. “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). Not just he can give us all things, but he will. He will. He will give us everything we need to do his will, and glorify his name, and make it home.

When he leads you into the waterless encampment of Rephidim, and there is no human hope, trust him. “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). Everything you need has been purchased, above all, himself, for your enjoyment now and forever (1 Peter 3:18).

The road to the pastorate is filled with men who had hoped to arrive a long time ago. Many years have passed since they first felt the seed of a desire to shepherd Christ’s church. But for any number of reasons — life circumstances, personal immaturity, the need for training — no church has called them as shepherd. Not yet.

I think of one friend whose aspiration has quietly burned for over a decade. I think of another man, barely out of his teens, who recently started pursuing the pastorate and likely has years ahead of him. I think of my former self, traveling that road through my entire twenties. Such men may feel ambitions as big as Paul’s — but then remember, with a sigh, that they are not even a Timothy yet.

What can a man do on that road, especially when he can’t see the end of it? Well, quite a lot. Bobby Jamieson offers a couple of dozen ideas in his helpful book The Path to Being a Pastor. My colleague Marshall Segal boils those down to seven worthy ambitions. But lately my mind has been focused on a passage from Paul to Timothy. Timothy was already a pastor at the time of Paul’s writing, but he was a young pastor, not far removed from the road of aspiring men. And Paul’s counsel applies wonderfully to those preparing to join him.

“Do we enjoy Jesus before we preach him, and preach him because we enjoy him?”

We might capture the heart of Paul’s burden in 1 Timothy 4:6–16 with the words of verse 15: “Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress.” Let them see your progress, Timothy. Don’t grow discouraged. Don’t remain stuck. Instead, by God’s grace, gain ground. Hone your character. Develop your competency. Become more godly, more fruitful, more zealous, more skilled. Make progress — the kind of progress that others can see.

To that end, consider a two-part plan: Train privately. Practice publicly.

Train Privately

Most of Paul’s commands in 1 Timothy 4:6–16 focus on Timothy’s public ministry. “Command and teach” (verse 11); “set the believers an example” (verse 12); “devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching” (verse 13); and so on. At the same time, Paul knew just how easily public ministry could outpace private piety. He knew how tempting it could be to “keep a close watch on . . . the teaching” without keeping a close watch “on yourself” (verse 16).

It is frightfully possible to preach in public what you disobey in private. It is sadly common for men, even pastors-in-training, to lose delight in God’s word, and neglect the prayer closet. So, behind, before, and alongside Timothy’s public ministry, Paul says, “Train yourself for godliness” (verse 7). Explain publicly what you have experienced privately. Let all your teaching be plucked from the orchard of your soul. Remember that all God-pleasing progress in public flows from God-centered progress in private.

Enjoy His Words

“Train yourself for godliness”: the command takes us into an athletic spirituality, a pursuit of Christ that doesn’t mind the uphill climb, that relishes some sweat, that is willing to beat disobedient feelings into submission. Give yourself, Timothy, to the long, gradual, difficult, joyful process of becoming more like Jesus — or what some Puritans called “the great business of godliness” (The Genius of Puritanism, 12).

Such training may take many forms, but Paul leaves no doubt about the central content of Timothy’s regimen: he would progress in godliness by “being trained in the words of the faith” (1 Timothy 4:6). Reject “deceitful spirits and teachings of demons” (verse 1); sidestep “irreverent, silly myths” (verse 7). Instead, give yourself to God’s word.

If there is a secret to public progress, surely it lies in private soul-dealings with the God who speaks. I for one have felt chastened lately by Andrew Bonar’s description of the young Robert Murray M’Cheyne, who would often ride outside town “to enjoy an hour’s perfect solitude; for he felt meditation and prayer to be the very sinews of his work” (Memoir and Remains of Robert Murray M’Cheyne, 56). Meditation and prayer are the sinews of ministry. Without them, we may have the muscle of charisma and the bones of orthodoxy, but the body hangs loose and weak; we stagger rather than run.

In one way or another, the depth of our private dealings with God will become evident in public. Our faces will shine like Moses’s — or they won’t. Our spontaneous speech and conduct will “set . . . an example” (verse 12) — or it won’t. We will hand others the ripe fruit of our own meditations — or we will deal in plastic apples and pears.

As aspiring leaders, we know God’s word forms the soul and substance of our public ministry. But over time, has our private life come to betray that conviction? Do we still read God’s word with anything like athletic obsession? Do we enjoy Jesus before we preach him, and preach him because we enjoy him? Do we treat meditation and prayer as the indispensable sinews of ministry?

Examine Your Soul

As Timothy devotes himself to “the words of the faith,” Paul calls him to turn his attention inward as well. “Keep a close watch on yourself,” he writes (1 Timothy 4:16). Timothy was an overseer of souls, but the first soul he needed to oversee was his own.

“The gifts of God are not only given, but cultivated; not only bestowed, but honed.”

Paul had spoken such words to pastors before. “Pay careful attention to yourselves,” he told the elders in Ephesus (Acts 20:28). And he had good reason to warn: “From among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things” (Acts 20:30). Pastor or not, if a man does not keep a close watch on himself, he will lose himself. He will not only fail to progress; he will regress, sometimes beyond hope. And Timothy was no exception.

So, Paul says, keep a close watch. Regularly tour the city of your heart to see if any enemies have breached the gate and now threaten the throne. Stand sentinel in your soul; know the weak spots on the walls, and study the enemies you are likely to face. Pray and then patiently review in God’s presence your speech, conduct, love, faith, purity (1 Timothy 4:12). As you read God’s word, ask him to search you and save you, to reveal you and rescue you (Psalm 139:23–24). “Lord, discipline me, correct me, expose me, confront me — and whatever it takes, keep me from destroying myself.”

True, we do not make much progress in godliness by looking inward. But we may notice the enemies that keep us from progress — enemies that, unmortified, would ruin all our progress up till now.

Practice Publicly

If private progress relates mostly to our character, public progress relates mostly to our competence. And in our passage, Paul cares about Timothy’s competence a lot. When he writes, “Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress” (1 Timothy 4:15), “these things” refers mainly to “the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching” (verse 13). Timothy was already “able to teach” (1 Timothy 3:2), but Paul wanted him to become more able, to increasingly look like “a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).

Paul recognized in Timothy a pastoral gift (1 Timothy 4:14). But Timothy’s gift was not a static endowment: he could “neglect the gift” he had, or he could “practice” and improve it (verses 14–15). For the gifts of God are not only given, but cultivated; not only bestowed, but honed. And here men like us find hope. However gifted we may feel (or not), we are not at the mercy of our present attainments. We can handle God’s word with more care. We can apply it with more power. We can develop a greater readiness “in season and out of season” (2 Timothy 4:2). That is, as long as we practice.

Embrace Unspectacular Opportunities

Few men receive a ready-made gift of teaching, a gift with no assembly required. God’s kingdom has its occasional Spurgeons, of course, who preached better as a teenager than I ever will as an adult. But most of us become proficient only through repeated practice over years, and then most of us progress further only through more practice still. And if we’re going to practice as much as we ought — as much as Paul’s “immerse yourself” suggests (1 Timothy 4:15) — then we likely will need to embrace opportunities that seem pretty unspectacular.

We might, for example, lead a group of guys in middle-school ministry. We might pour more thought into family devotions. We might find a lonely, suffering saint, listen to his heart woes, and practice the complex art of pastoral counseling. We might gather a few men committed to exhorting and encouraging each other. We might spend time with the sermon passage before we hear it preached, developing our own ideas and applications, drafting our own outline. We might snatch up every realistic opportunity to open the Bible and say something about it.

Perhaps we feel tempted to despise these small, unspectacular opportunities. But small, unspectacular opportunities form, for most of us, the indispensable path toward progress. There is no progress without practice — and practice sometimes feels utterly ordinary.

Fail Well

Those who practice enough, of course, eventually discover an uncomfortable truth: with practice comes not only progress, but failure. Open your mouth often enough, and you’ll say something foolish. Exhort others enough, and you’ll damage a bruised reed. Counsel enough, and you’ll speak too soon or too late. Preach enough, and you’ll leave the pulpit disheartened.

In the aftermath of such moments, we may feel like practicing a little less; rather than immersing ourselves in ministry or devoting ourselves to teaching (1 Timothy 4:13, 15), we may feel like retreating to a safer place. We may want to dig a hole and bury our talents in the dirt of our failures.

Yet precisely in such moments, we need to hear Paul’s word to Timothy in verse 14: “Do not neglect the gift you have.” Yes, your effort ended in embarrassment, but do not neglect the gift you have. Yes, taking another public risk feels daunting, but do not neglect the gift you have. Yes, to fail again like that would feel shameful, but do not neglect the gift you have. In some cases, of course, repeated failure may suggest that we don’t actually have the gift we thought we did. In so many cases, however, the failure was just part of the practice.

So, hold your failures in open hands, and learn all you can from them. Remember “the words of the faith” that have been your private strength, your secret delight. Take courage that if “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15), he can certainly restore and use failures. And then get back in the pulpit, back before the small group, back on the streets, back wherever your ministry lies, and use the gift that God has given you.

And in time, all will see your progress.

Can a man really be truly alive who has forgotten how to weep? Can a man of God, or a minister of Christ, truly claim to be fully awake without tears? These are questions, uncomfortable questions, I have been asking myself.

These considerations, dry as my eyes have been, do not originate with me. I consider them somewhat reluctantly. I had studied (and even memorized) the parting speech from Paul to the Ephesian elders before I beheld the apostle’s wet face.

Paul, anchored briefly on the seacoast of Miletus, sends a message forty miles south to Ephesus. He bids the elders come immediately. When they arrive, he tells them what breaks their hearts: “Now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again” (Acts 20:25, 37–38). Paul was resolved to board a ship sailing into dark providences. “I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me” (Acts 20:22–23).

“Can a man really be truly alive who has forgotten how to weep?”

Three years he had spent with them in Ephesus, tending their souls “day and night.” This is their last meeting in this life. His words fell as bricks of gold. Of all the things to say and recall, to encourage and to warn, with so few characters left to compose his final message, are you surprised that Paul mentions twice, of all things, his tears?

Serve the Lord with Tears

He begins his final words to these dear friends,

You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews. (Acts 20:18–19)

Paul mentions his crying as a matter of fact — you yourselves know. The Ephesian elders remembered how the dew of his affections fell unashamedly. They saw him cry the “whole time” he lived among them. What an oft neglected picture of the mighty apostle.

If I could, I would try and paint it, entitled, “The Lord’s Lion, Crying.” It is good for me to see this. Paul, in his ministry, lost composure at times. At times — and it appears at many times — his passion for Christ and his pity for souls undid his seeming poise. “Do you remember my tears?” he asks these now elders of the church. Can you see those gracious rains watering my sermons, indeed, those sermon exclamation points from my soul to yours, servants of your eternal good and my gracious Lord?

The scene causes me to ask, Do I serve the Lord with such tears? Do I even want to? Do you?

Warnings Through the Blur

When Paul mentions his tears the second time, he says more. After telling the men to pay careful attention to themselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit made them overseers, he tells them that vicious wolves will attack from without, and false teachers will creep up from within (Acts 20:29–30) — stay alert, he pleads. But notice what accompanies his appeal:

Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. (Acts 20:31)

“Admonish” means to warn. For three years he did not stop warning them, or weeping for them. What a sight. What a perplexity. Ponder this weeping warrior with me.

This man of industry and blood-earnestness warns them of sin and judgment and the wrath to come — while he weeps warm tears over their souls. As a sentinel, he held up his hands and declared himself free of their blood. He tells them twice he did not shrink back in cowardice from telling them all of God’s truth. He said the hard and unpopular word; he warned and called sin what it is. People did not like what he said — in fact, they were trying to kill him.

Still this soldier wept while warning: Turn from your ruin, flee from the coming wrath, repent toward God and place all of your faith in Jesus Christ! Believe in the good news of the grace of God. Keep believing in the crucified — now risen and soon returning — Christ!

Power of Tearful Pleading

Imagine standing across from such a man.

Your fallen heart has often been on its guard against arguments and criticisms. Your armor is well-clad, and your sin is well-protected. Heartless disputes and playing with words is your sport. But who is this foe striking from horseback? What kind of warrior sheds tears for the man he wishes to conquer? Steel meeting cold steel — this is the battlefield’s familiar soundtrack. Grunts and yells and trumpet blasts you relish, but not these soft and unnerving cries from the enemy — tears for you. This is more than mere truth; it’s love.

You see his redness of eye. You hear the arresting stoppings and startings in his speech. Here is no enemy, no hired hand, no mere debater of this age. He is earnest, to be sure, but earnest for more than an argument. He’s earnest for souls — my soul. He may discard my opinions, yet he bears me upon his heart. He tells me hard things but seems to want good for me. Perhaps more than I want for myself.

Admonitions for Two Men

What a corrective to both tearless stridency and weepy willows today — to the ones like me who have taught on the lake of fire while seldom shedding a tear beside it, and to those crying who would never dare mention hell.

“What a nuisance warnings can become when given without this holy moisture. All lightening, no rain.”

What a nuisance warnings can become when given without this holy moisture. All lightening, no rain. Such repeated scolding gives off dry, hot air and leaves hearts cracked. Bellowings Paul knew too well, “Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1). In his now-wet eyes, the tearless can find hope that grace may not be done with us just yet.

But neither can we long tolerate the convictionless crier, whose tears have no deep well. Men ever on the verge of crying over trifles need reminding that they should quit themselves like men and be strong. Good tears serve a higher ambition. They serve the Lord Jesus. But above these rise the cries in Ephesus. How that weeping earnestness confounded sinners as Paul pled with the dead to turn and live. The Lord’s Lion — Crying, Warning, Pleading.

Such a one — I am only left to imagine — was hard to argue with for long, and even harder to forget. When is the last time, dear Christian reader, you warned a faithless brother, an apostate mother, a lustful son, a deceived friend through blurred vision?

Should not the truly living, in such a world as this, find times to weep? Do not many live despising mercy and rejecting Christ? Are not souls lost to that eternal place of gnashing and weeping every hour — our friends, classmates, and neighbors — many not knowing a Christian who shed a single tear over their souls? We come with glad tidings; we need not always cry. But is our danger too much tearful pleas for souls?

Weep into Their Souls

A final word, then, for fellow pastor-elders, men like those Paul spoke to that day. Do you have a tear to shed for the lost sinner and threatened saint? Do you serve your Lord with tears? I do not pretend to instruct you in these matters. These are but my sermon notes as I overhear the weeping lion.

Charles Spurgeon said it was a blessed thing for a minister to “weep his way into men’s souls,” a quality he had admired in George Whitefield.

Hear how Whitefield preached, and never dare to be lethargic again. [Cornelius] Winter says of him that “sometimes he exceedingly wept, and was frequently so overcome, that for a few seconds you would suspect he never would recover; and when he did, nature required some little time to compose herself. I hardly ever knew him go through a sermon without weeping more or less. His voice was often interrupted by his affections; and I have heard him say in the pulpit, ‘You blame me for weeping; but how can I help it, when you will not weep for yourselves, although your own immortal souls are on the verge of destruction, and, for aught I know, you are, hearing your last sermon, and may never more have an opportunity to have Christ, offered to you?’” (Lectures to My Students, 307)

Let us all pray for holy tears. Not for their own sake, not to make a vain show that draws attention to ourselves, or tries to manipulate. But let us seek life, full life, abundant life in Christ — a life fully alive, fully awake, fully compassionate within a cursed world of evil times and immortal souls. Lord, raise a generation of lionhearted men and women for Christ who serve you with all their hearts and minds and souls and strength — and tears.