1. I suppose most people know that John 11:35 is the shortest verse in the Bible.
2. It is also one of the most moving Scriptures.  It is a picture of God’s tender compassion and His great love.
3. There are two other references to our Lord crying in the Bible (Luke 19:41 and Hebrews 5:7) and I would like for us to look at these other Scriptures this morning also.

I. JESUS WEPT OVER THE DEATH OF A FRIEND.

1. In our zeal to defend the great doctrine of the deity of Christ, let us not forget the humanity of Christ – “Jesus wept.” 
2. Hebrews 4:15 says Jesus is “touched with the feeling of our infirmities.”
3. “Infirmities” – sickness and death.  Jesus wept over the death of a dear friend.  He wept with Lazarus’ sisters, Martha and Mary. 
4. Behind the tears of Jesus we see the love of God.  As chapter 11 of the Gospel of John begins, our Lord is told that his good friend Lazarus is sick.  Note the words (11:1-3). 
5. “Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick” (John 11:3; cf. 11:5, 35, 36).  If we could only get a hold of this – the love of God. 
6. The songwriter put it this way:

The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin.
O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.

7. Spurgeon said, “Between indignation at the powers of evil, grief for the family who had been bereaved by death, sorrow over those who stood by in unbelief, and a distressing realization of the affects of sin, the Lord’s heart was evidently in a great storm.  Instead of the thunder of threatening, and the lightening of a curse, all that was perceptible of the inward tempest was a shower of tears; for ‘Jesus wept’” (“Jesus Wept,” June 23, 1889).
8. Spurgeon went on to say that Jesus wept because He is our instructor; Jesus wept because He is our comforter; and Jesus wept because He is our example.
9. Some of the greatest saints in the Bible were great weepers.   Hannah wept so much that she could not eat.  She prayed and wept so fervently that Eli the priest thought she was drunk.
10. The great preachers in the Bible wept over sinners. Jeremiah has been known throughout history as the “Weeping Prophet.”
11. Elisha wept before Hazael, and Hazael said to him, “Why weepeth my lord?”  Elisha told him, “Because I know the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel: their strong holds wilt thou set on fire, and their young men wilt thou slay with the sword, and wilt dash their children, and rip up their women with child” (II Kings 8:12).
12. Elisha could not help but weep at the thought of it!
13. These are marvelous accounts, and there are many others in the Bible, but nothing can compare with these two words: “Jesus wept.”
14. Jesus is more than a prophet like Jeremiah or Elisha.  He is a far greater king than King David, who himself often wept. 
15. Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords; the Creator of the Universe; the sinless Son of God.  And He stood by Lazarus’ tomb and wept.

II. JESUS WEPT OVER A DOOMED CITY (LUKE 19:41).

1. In Luke 19, we see our Lord coming to Jerusalem for the last time.  In just a few days He would be crucified right outside the city walls.
2. The name Jerusalem means, “founded in peace” or “city of peace.”  But there has been precious little peace in Jerusalem, going back to the time when David took the city from the Jebusites up until today (Luke 19:42-44).
3. And there will be no peace in Jerusalem during the coming tribulation.
4. Here Jerusalem (the capital) represents the nation of Israel (19:41).
5. Isaiah 9:6 identifies Jesus as the “Prince of Peace” but the Jews did not believe their own Scriptures.  They rejected the Prince of Peace and they crucified Him (19:42).
6. Micah the prophet was a contemporary of Isaiah.  Seven hundred years before Christ, Micah wrote these words: “Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps.”
7. But they did not believe Micah.  They did not believe Isaiah.  And they did not believe Jesus.
8. And so Jesus wept over Jerusalem – a doomed city.  Our Lord warned them it was a doomed city. Jesus wept over Jerusalem because they rejected His message (cf. Luke 13:34, 35).
9. Certainly NYC has rejected the Gospel.  NYC is a doomed city.  I once heard Mayor Giuliani boast about his various accomplishments and say something to the effect that 100 years from now NYC will be a better city, and I trembled, and thought – will NYC be here 100 years from now?
10. One hundred more years of homosexual parades, and so-called “gay marriages,” and babies murdered in abortion clinics.
11. One hundred more years of sinners defying God?
12. Our Lord’s prophecies were fulfilled in 70 AD, when the Roman army under their general Titus came and destroyed the temple and destroyed the city of Jerusalem, just like our Lord said they would (cf. Matthew 24:1, 2).
13. Titus destroyed Jerusalem and then went on to become the emperor of Rome.  After his death, Titus’ brother, the emperor Domitian, built the Arch of Titus, a marble triumphal arch with a single arched opening, located on the Via Sacra (the main street of ancient Rome).
14. The Arch of Titus commemorates the capture and sack of Jerusalem.  Carmela, Sarah, and I saw it when we visited Rome.  The scene on the arch depicts the triumphal procession with the booty from the temple at Jerusalem. The Menorah and the Table of the Shewbread are very prominent in the picture, as well as the silver trumpets which called the Jews to Rosh Hashanah.
15. When we read about our Lord weeping over Jerusalem’s impending destruction, we wonder how much time does NYC have left.
16. And we wonder how Jesus feels when He looks down at NYC.  When He sees all of the gross sins – the debauchery, the sodomy, the corruption, the drinking, the drugs, the lawlessness, etc.
17. Our Lord wept over Jerusalem, and yet at the same time He showed his burning indignation against their conduct. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee!” (Luke 13:34).
18. Our Lord condemned their unbelief and their wickedness, but let us never forget that He wept with compassion for the doom that hung over them.
19. It must be so with us.  Our strong rebuke for sin should be accompanied by tearful appeals for sinners to get right with God.
20. Before moving on, let me point out that in Luke 13:35, our Lord was stating that Israel had crossed the deadline.  They had reached the point of no return.  But they did not realize it.  They were blinded by sin.  They thought everything was OK.
21. Has America reached that point?  Has America reached the point of no return?  Only God knows.

III. JESUS WEPT OVER A LOST WORLD (HEB. 5:7).

1. Hebrews 5:7 says, Jesus “offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears”?
2. Our Lord wept over the spiritual condition of men.
3. John 3:36 says, “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.”
4. I have preached that text many times and I have tried to imagine what it means to have the wrath of God abiding on sinners.   But it is more than I can fully comprehend. 
5. But Jesus sees the wrath of God abiding on lost sinners.  He sees men dead in their trespasses and sins.  He sees men in spiritual darkness, having no hope, and without God in the world.
6. Jesus wept over a lost world.  We ought to weep when we look out over a lost world, a sin-loving and Christ-rejecting world, a world heading for destruction.
7. I shall never forget what I heard a preacher say one day: “It’s not that sinners are too hard.  The problem is that we’re too hard.”
8. May God forgive us for our hard hearts!
9. I think our Lord still is weeping over this world full of sinners because Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.”
10. I remember meeting a man while out knocking on doors.  He said he used to attend an independent Baptist church but now he was not going to church anywhere.  I asked him what happened.
11. He said he was standing in front of his church one night when a carload of worldly people drove by in a beautiful Cadillac.  He said one of the church members said, “They’re driving in a Cadillac now but some day they’ll all be roasting in hell!”
12. He said all of the others standing there laughed but he was bothered by it.  Personally I do not think it is humorous thinking about a carload of worldly sinners driving headfirst into hell. 
13. Jesus never laughed about sinners going to hell.  He wept over this sin-loving world. We ought to weep too.

CONCLUSION:

1. Many years ago, a Baptist preacher by the name of LR Scarborough preached a message entitled, “The Tears of Jesus.”  He said:
2. Some time ago I spoke at a great convention on compassion for the lost.  It was some years ago when our boys were gathering in the army camps all over our country (WWI).  In that crowd was a rather old, plainly dressed woman…When the service was over she and her husband came down the aisle to shake hands with me.  She took me by the hand and said, “Do you live at Forth Worth?”  I said, “I do.” Then she started to say, “My boy is in Camp Bowie near Forth Worth.”  She stopped and wept. Seeing her weeping, her husband came up and putting his arms around her, he said, “Mary, what’s the matter?”   She said, “I was thinking of our baby boy yonder in Camp Bowie.  You know he isn’t saved.  We have written letters to him about it; we have prayed for him and others have prayed for him.” She said, “Here’s a preacher that lives near where our soldier boy is and I was trying to put our boy, our baby boy, on the heart of this preacher.” Then she turned to me in a way and with a question I shall never forget.  I thought I loved lost men.  For 25 years I have given strength without reservation to the winning of lost men to Christ.  I thought I loved lost men.   But this dear old mother looked up with all the love of a mother and said, “Preacher, do you love lost men?”  Oh, that question still rings in my heart today! (Gospel Messages)
3. LR Scarborough concluded his message by quoting Psalm 126:5, 6.  “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.  He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.”
4. Jesus wept.  May God break our hearts too.