Henry Wiebe .com

Does God Cry

(Heartache #1)

 

Did you ever begin a project to which you were totally committed and there was no possibility of quitting once you began.  Like a bull rider once out the chute finds the challenge greater than anticipated, yet he must follow through for there is no way to quit.

       

        God created all things including mankind.  He made man as himself in order for him to have a family.  He loved man with extreme love.  Man was the crowning glory of his entire creation.  All the host of heaven marveled in amazed wonder that the almighty Creator would make a creature so much like God himself. God saw that his creation was excellent and he loved it.  He still does.  Man was free to love or to hate.  Love must be free or it cannot be love.  Love forced is slavery.  The choice is that of man.  God desires your love more than anything you have to offer.  To love God is to obey him.  Disobedience is rejection.

 

        Man made the wrong choice and loved himself and chose his own way.  This disobedience has led man down a long journey of pain, suffering, grief and sorrow.  Farther and farther down the trail of deception and darkness.  It became so bitter in the eyes of the Holy Father that he actually wished he hadn’t even made man.  Listen as he shares his great disappointment.  Genesis 6:5-6, “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.  And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.”  Does God cry?  Grief is what your heart experiences when it’s broken.

 

(Heartache #2)

        As God beheld men’s hatred, his corruption and violence, he had only one man left that loved him, that was Noah.  He told Noah of his desperate grief and his planned remedy.  I will destroy them.  Build an ark for I’m sending a flood that will engulf the entire world, and destroy every living thing from off the face of the earth.  Noah and his family were saved by his obedience to build the ark of safety.  All else was destroyed.

 

        God was committed to his project and began all over again.  Noah and his three sons replenished the earth.  Once again their evil imaginations and inventions led them away from God after many generations.  There was one man that truly loved God and walked with him. His name was Abram.  God made a covenant with him and changed his name to Abraham.

 

        God chose him and his descendents as the ones to whom he would give his oracles.  Hoping that they would be an example to the world and could restore all nations whom he loved so intensely, but who had forsaken him.

 

(Heartache #3)

Once again his descendents, the children of Israel grew more wicked than even the other nations.  They turned against him in their heart while giving him lip service only.

 

        God did everything he could from blessing them to cursing them in order to turn them to him.  He sent prophets who spoke about coming judgments if they would not repent.  They killed the prophets and would not keep his commandments.  He sent pestilence and sickness and disease and the sword of the enemy in order to drive them back to himself.  Nothing seemed to work.  His grief was now almost unbearable.  Again in his justice judgment he was being forced to do what he longed not to do.  That was to allow them to die.  Ezekiel 18:23, “Have I pleasure at all that the wicked should die?”  saith the Lord God:  “And not that he should return from his ways and live?”

 

Have you ever loved someone that didn’t love you?  Did it hurt, did you cry?  Ever loved someone who loved you but with the passing of time fell in love with someone else and left you broken hearted?  Did you cry?  Did you ever lose a baby or a small child that was dear to your heart?  You did weep much!  You have a heart which is a container of one of God’s most prevalent attributes, love.  God is love, love, love beyond human comprehension.  His is a Holy love undefiled or diluted by sin and hatred and death.  Even his righteous judgments which he must execute are done in great love and compassion.  He desires to show mercy much more that judgment.

 

        God dearly loves his creation.  God is radically in love with you.  The waywardness and hatred and strife and bloodshed and selfishness of mankind has literally broken God’s heart.  We are his offspring, his children whom he created for the purpose of fellowship, love, intimacy, honor and respect.  Yet we have turned our backs to his merciful kindness and ruled him out of our lives.  Does God cry?  Listen with your heart to his heart.  Drop all your prejudices and preconceived ideas that you hold against your heavenly father and open your heart as he speaks now through one of his prophets. 

Jeremiah 8:21-9:1,” For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me.  Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there?  Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?  Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!”  The pain the brokenness and sorrow you felt when you lost your dearest love is the same God suffers with you and me.  Magnify that by hundreds and thousands and you have the heart of God.  For all we like sheep have gone astray.

 

        Would you have liked to just been able to forget it all when love failed?  That broken heart and tears of pain could have been fixed for at least a little while if you could only find a place to run away to and just start all over again.  A place where you didn’t have to listen to the old songs about streets called loneliness and loveless mansions, heartbreak hotels, candy kisses and take these chains from my heart and set me free.  But no, it wasn’t possible to escape because love is love, and it will never change.  So it is with God.  He is love and he cannot change, neither can he escape.  Listen again to these words from his heart, “Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them!”  (Jer. 9:2)

 

        What about your children?  Have they ever taken you for granted?  All the work and planning and effort you expended in their behalf.  Did you always get a great big “thank you,” a hug and a note of appreciation?  Me neither, says God.  I give sunshine, rain, flowers, food, protection and all things that are.  Yet I must search to find any notes of praise or songs of thanksgiving, except from the sparrows and dove.  They know me best as a God of love.  Isaiah 1:2, “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.”  Ever try and try to bring correction with the rod of chastisement out of a heart of love and the result was only a more obstinate and determined spirit of rebellion?  Me too, says God.  Isaiah 1:5, “Why should ye be stricken any more?  Ye will revolt more and more…”  Ever feel like it’s hopeless to try and restore a broken relationship?  The kids won’t listen and what do I do next?  Me too, says God.  Ever seem like the kids just scorn your wisdom, your years of experience and your understanding of the consequences of their self destructive ways?  Me too, says God.  Jeremiah 13:15-17, “Hear ye, and give ear; be not proud; for the Lord hath spoken.  Give glory to the Lord your God, before he causes darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness.  But if ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride; and mine eye shall weep sore, and run down with tears, because the Lord’s flock is carried away captive.”

 

        One secret God seems to keep mostly to himself.  “I hurt so deeply and weep so much, all for you my people.”

        Ever hurt so much with an aching heart that you prefer that no one even come trying to console you?  Me too, says God.  Isaiah 22:4, “Therefore said I, look away from me; I will weep bitterly, labor not to comfort me, because of the spoiling of the daughter of my people.”  Yes, God in his love tried every possible means to turn his people back to himself and yet they grew worse and worse.  Just as a mother hen gathers her little chicks under her wings when she sees danger, God tried and tried, but they failed to respond.

 

(Heartache #4)

        His unending love drove him on to make the final attempt to restore love.  This leads to the most incredible story ever told.  The one event that will forever bear testimony and witness to the fact – GOD LOVES ME AND YOU.

 

        God sent his only begotten son, Jesus, to bear the sins of the whole world so that we can be free from the destruction and consequences of the death penalty.  He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.  He came unto his own (Jews) and they rejected him.  The first sermon he preached in their synagogue was met with such hatred they tried to kill him. 

 

        After three and ½ years of healing the sick, casting out devils, feeding the hungry and doing good, he looked over to Jerusalem and wept.  Does God cry?  Hear his heart as he expresses his father’s grief.  “Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but ye would not.  Therefore your house is left unto you desolate.”

 

        Soon after those words were spoken his own people crucified him just outside the gates of the city he loved.  Does God cry?  Would you, had it been your Son?

 

(Heartache #5)

        At Calvary the slate was wiped clean.  At that instant the sins of the whole world were taken away.  Similar to what it was in Noah’s time.  It’s a new world and we have an opportunity for a new beginning. The message is taken to the world and under the powerful ministry of the Apostles the ministry of the resurrected Jesus is transforming the world.  Thousands of lives were being changed every day.  But man soon lost sight of the cross of Christ and of the resurrection power and of the best gifts that the church inherited, the powerful gifts of the Holy Spirit.  Once again sin and self invaded the temple, and the God of power and deliverance was replaced with a form of godliness.  Once again man has taken the same path of sin, hatred, war and death.  Then in man’s sinful, foolish blindness he blames a holy and just God who has proven his love and goodness over and over, time and again.  God has not changed.  His heart is still filled with love and goodness and mercy.

 

        Let’s walk away now from the crowd.  Look at your own heart.  How have you responded to his love?  Do you daily come into his presence to worship him, tell him how much you love and appreciate him?  Have you come to know the living and true God?  Do you hear his voice?  You have within you the ability to bring joy to the father, and all of heaven.  There is more rejoicing in heaven by God and the angels over one sinner that repents than many righteous who need no repentance.

 

        Isaiah 57:15, “For thus said the high and lofty One that inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.”

 

        The following is a vision given to a young lady I’ve know since she was about nine years of age.  She is now about 21.  She has a mighty ministry among the youth and has been to Africa twice.  Those who went with her bring reports of many miracles and healings as well as a transformation of entire communities.

 

        Listen with your heart to the vision of Jenny Miller.

Does God cry?  Jenny Miller’s vision (2001)

I was in my Father’s house and there were many different rooms.  I went into a room called intimacy.  I loved it.  It was inexpressibly beautiful and extravagant.  On the floor next to the bed was a little wooden door.  I wondered why is that in here.  So I asked the Lord, “What is that?”  He said, “Oh you don’t want to go down there.”  I said, “Well, what is it?”  He said, “Very few people want to go there.”  I said, “What is it?”  He said, “It’s the weeping room.”  I asked, “Why would you put a weeping room right next to the place of intimacy?”  He said, “Here’s where I spend most of my time.”  I said, “I want to go.”  He said, “It’s a long dark stairway and it’s cold and it’s lonely and you gotta get really low to get in.”  I said, “If that’s where you are I want to go.”  He started walking me down and we had to get lower and lower to fit in.  We finally got into this very simple little room with one little window and one little chair.

 

        He sat me down in the little wooden chair and I looked out the window.  I started to see faces.  Faces of people from all over the world. They were in pain and sorrow from injustice and abuse.  They were screaming and crying out to the Lord.  The Lord reminded me of all the happy rooms, like the wine cellar room, where so many of my body want to spend their time.  But very few come down here with me.  This is where I share my heart.  It’s so lonely.  It’s not fancy or fun, but it’s here you find my heart.  “Oh Lord”, I said, “I want to be in this place.”  Then I saw in the wall another door.  I said, “God, what’s in that room?”  He said, “That’s the strategy room.”  I said, “I want to go.”  I knew that if I could just get in that room God would download major revival strategies.  I want to go in!  But God told me basically that I was too fat.  “You won’t fit through the door.”  I said, “What does that mean?”  God said, “You have to spend lots of time in this weeping room before I allow you in that room.  Here things of self begin to fall off, and when you’re small enough, you can fit through the door.”  So I continued to sit and wonder, “Is it time yet?  When will it be time?”  I was asking God for his heart as we wept and he embraced me and kept embracing me.  I knew that no one gets into the strategy room without going through the weeping room.  There is only one door, and there are very few who find it.

 

        Finally God said, “It’s time, you’re gonna go into the strategy room.”  Suddenly, the fear of God came on me and I sensed that this was a sacred Holy moment.  There was a large desk and two huge angels, one on each side of the desk.  They each had vials of some kind and God took his great big sapphire ring and put it on my finger and said, “I’m giving you authority.”  He looked at the angels and they stepped over and started pouring the anointing oil out of their vials onto my head and he said, “and I’m giving you power.”

 

End of vision.

 

November 7, 2002,  A Dream by Henry Wiebe

(A call to be sober)

 

It was the day we started the war with Iraq and it was that night that Jesus returned.  I saw the clouds become bright with lights and several different scenes in the heaven.  The people were transparent as they descended toward the earth.  I and a Christian friend and brother went to a corner of town where people of leisure gather to talk.  Everyone was excited about the wondrous scene that just occurred.  An older retired Doctor spoke up and said that he was sorry to inform us that this was all people’s illusion.  Since everyone had begun smoking so much, people’s minds were affected with hallucinations.  I then noticed that my friend had a cigarette in his hand that was mostly smoked to a stub.  Then I saw that I had one also, but it had only a small portion smoked and was almost full length.  We then stomped them out on the ground. 

 

End of dream.

(* In reality neither of us smoke.)

Interpretation

 

This does NOT mean that Christ will return at the time we begin fighting Iraq.  It means that we must be aware that we are in spiritual warfare and we need to stop smoking (Blowing smoke).  We blow smoke when we violate Eph. 5:3-4.  “But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becomes saints;  neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient; but rather giving of thanks.”  Foolish talking and jesting is blowing smoke.  It has no lasting value.

        My friend in the dream does this a lot, thus his cigarette is mostly smoked out.  I do it occasionally therefore mine has only been smoked a little.  The Amplified says (Silly and corrupt) talk, nor coarse jesting….  This does not mean we cannot in normal conversation have humorous and laughable occurrences.  But don’t go out of your way to do so.  Rather give thanks, which makes heaven rejoice – not the carnal mind here.  Lord, I repent, I’m guilty.  Please forgive.  Thanks.