WHEN HE THOUGHT THEREON, HE WEPT
“And the second time the cock crew. And Peter called to mind the word that Jesus said unto him, Before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice. And when he thought thereon, he wept.” Mark 14:72
Peter had just denied the Lord for the third time. No one, including the Savior, could have made him believe that this could ever happen. But when Peter heard the rooster crow, he remembered the words of Jesus, Who had previously cautioned him that he would deny Christ. A flood of guilt filled the mind of the great apostle. “And when he thought thereon, he wept.”
All of us have been there. We know what it is like to fail the Lord. We all have done things we never thought we would do, or said things we never would have thought possible. And when we thought thereon, realizing how seriously we had wronged the Lord, our hearts were crushed.
The Christian life is a joyful life, but there must be a place for being serious about our sins. Sin is often taken too lightly. God is so loving and forgiving, but we sometimes take His mercy for granted. We need to think about the consequences of our sins. When we really think about what we have done, we, too, will weep. There is a time for laughing, but there is also a time for mourning, even about our sins. James said it this way, “Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness” (James 4:9). There can be no revival without repentance. There will be no holiness without confessing and forsaking sin. There will be no tears of repentance without taking sin seriously. “And when he thought thereon, he wept.”
When was the last time you thought so sincerely about some sin, or sins, you have committed that you actually wept? We realize that one can repent without tears, and we can confess sins without weeping. Still the question needs to be asked, “Why are there so few tears on our altars?” Maybe we don’t think as seriously about sin as we should. Could it be that sin has been justified and excused for so long that we have lost the sorrow for sin? Is it possible that our souls are so vexed that we have become desensitized to the true wickedness of sin? Perhaps we seldom take the time to honestly look at and think about the damage our sins have done. When we see sin as it is, and think on it as we should, there will be times of weeping.