This is an excerpt from a sermon preached by Charles Spurgeon on August 6, 1865 entitled “No Tears in Heaven”.  Randy Alcorn has written a book entitled We Shall See God where he introduces each of Charles Spurgeon’s sermons and then follows it up with comments and observations of his own.

Charles Spurgeon –

Perhaps another source of tears may suggest itself to you, namely sorrow in Heaven for our mistakes, misrepresentations, and unkindness toward other Christian brothers and sisters.

How surprised we will be to meet some saints in Heaven whom we did not love on Earth! We would not fellowship with them at the Lord’s Table. We would not acknowledge that they were Christians. We looked at them suspiciously if we saw them in the street. We suspected their zeal as being nothing better than a show and an exaggeration, and we looked on their best efforts as having sinister motives at the heart. We said many unkind things and felt a great many more than we said.

When we see these unknown and unrecognized brothers and sisters in Heaven, won’t their very presence naturally remind us of our offenses against Christian love and spiritual unity? I can’t imagine a perfect man looking at another perfect man without regretting that he ever treated him in an unkind manner.

I am sure as I walk among the saints in Heaven, I cannot (in the natural order of things) help feeling, I did not assist you as I ought to have done. I did not sympathize with you as I ought to have done. I spoke a harsh word to you. I was alienated from you. And I think you would all have to feel the same; inevitably you must. If it were not that by some heavenly means, and I don’t know how, the eternal God will so overshadow believers with the abundant bliss of his own self that even that cause of tears will be wiped away.

Has it never struck you, dear friends, that if you go to Heaven and see your dear children left behind unconverted, it would naturally be a cause of sorrow?

My mother told me that if I perished in Hell, she would have to say “Amen” to my condemnation. I knew it was true and it sounded awful, and it had a good effect on my mind.

It really is a very terrible spectacle—the thought of a perfect being looking down in Hell, for instance, as Abraham did, and yet feeling no sorrow. For you will remember that, in the tenor in which Abraham addresses the rich man, there is nothing of pity; there is not a single syllable which indicates any sympathy with him in his dreadful woes. And one does not quite comprehend that perfect beings, God-like beings, beings full of love and everything that constitutes the glory of God’s complete nature, would still be unable to weep, even over Hell itself. They cannot weep over their own children lost and ruined!

Now, how is this? If you will tell me, I will be glad, for I cannot tell you. I do not believe that there will be one bit less tenderness, that there will be one fraction less of friendliness, love, and sympathy—I believe there will be more—but that they will be in some way so refined and purified that while compassion for suffering is there, hatred of sin will be there to balance it, and a state of complete equilibrium will be attained.

Perfect acceptance of the divine will is probably the secret of it, but it is not my business to guess. I don’t know what handkerchief the Lord will use, but I do know that he will wipe away every tear from their eyes.