Sowing in Tears

Psalm 126:1-6 A Song of Ascents. When the LORD brought back the captivity of Zion, We were like those who dream.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter, And our tongue with singing. Then they said among the nations, “The LORD has done great things for them.”
The LORD has done great things for us, And we are glad. Bring back our captivity, O LORD, As the streams in the South.
Those who sow in tears Shall reap in joy. He who continually goes forth weeping, Bearing seed for sowing, Shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, Bringing his sheaves with him.

Perhaps you finish this year with a sense of exhaustion, and possibly even a small amount of despair. Possibly you reflect on this past year and its difficulties make you question and doubt the power of prayer. Possibly you wonder if the difference between praying and not praying really shows up in everyday life?

Can God’s people expect deliverance, even when circumstances look bleak? Can God’s people expect God to save, rescue, answer, help, when it has been a hard, difficult time, and most circumstances have seemed to suggest that God is absent or silent? Sometimes we wonder if the amazing answers to prayer, the incredible deliverances from sins we struggled with, the amazing eye-opening experiences in the Word of God, the unbelievable financial deliverances were things that God used to do, or perhaps things He does for us when we just start out. But then it seems to run out or God seems to turn His attention elsewhere.

Is that the case? Can we really expect more grace from God? Can we expect more answers, more deliverances? We all know the theological answer. We can all nod and know the answer in our heads, but not get the answer down into our hearts. We can all give the answer verbally, but too often the state of our hearts betrays a different belief. Instead of joyful hope, there is anxious fear. Instead of glad expectations, there is a cautious dread of what might be around the corner in 2011. Or perhaps there is just the kind of numb heart, that is too weather-worn to hope, and too afraid to doubt, so it just sits inert, trying not to hope or fear.

Psalms are written to get truth down from the head into the heart. Poems do more than deliver truth to our heads; poems grip our hearts with images. We remember those images, and they stay with us in ways that plain discursive statements do not. Psalm 126 aims to do that. It wants to teach God’s people, but it also wants to move God’s people to a kind of response to God. Psalm 126 aims to get God’s people to trust that loving God and waiting on God is worth it. By the time we have finished the psalm, we should say, God can be trusted, even if circumstances look bleak right now. The psalm says “Hope in God”. To create this hope in us, the psalmist sings of God’s grace in three ways: praise for past grace, a plea for present grace, and promises for future grace. As he sings, he wants us to be swept up into the song, until we believe and experience hope in God’s grace.

I. Praise for God’s Past Grace

A Song of Ascents. When the LORD brought back the captivity of Zion, We were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, And our tongue with singing. Then they said among the nations, “The LORD has done great things for them.” The LORD has done great things for us, And we are glad.

The psalmist describes something that happened to him and to others. They were amongst the Israelites who returned captivity. You remember the history. After the reign of Solomon, Israel split into two kingdoms. In the north, the ten tribes, to make up Israel, and in the south, the kingdom of Judah. In the years that followed, Israel experienced one wicked king after another, with no revivals, no repentance, no return to worshiping God. God warned them through the prophets to repent or they would be removed from the land. They did not repent. In 722 B.C, Israel was conquered by the Assyrians, and its people taken into captivity. The ones that remained, intermarried, lost their Jewish identity and became the Samaritans. There was no return from captivity for the ten northern tribes.

The kingdom of Judah did not experience such a sharp dive. They also had good and godly kings amongst the bad. However, the same thing happened to Judah. God warned them about their idolatry and injustice and spiritual adultery, but they did not repent. Eventually, God used the Babylonians to conquer Israel, and in 586 B.C. lead off thousands of captives to Babylon, where they lived as foreigners.

Now it was unheard of in the ancient Middle East that a nation which had been conquered and carried off to another country, would be released and settled back into their land.

But the one exception in all of ancient history were the Jewish people. In 539 B.C. King Cyrus of Persia issued a decree allowing the Jews to return to their own land, and even granted them funds, resources and protection to help them get back. They had lived in Babylon for 70 years, essentially a whole generation of Jews would have grown up under Babylonian and Persian rule. Many of them had no doubt given up all hope that they would ever go back to Israel. But Cyrus issued this decree, and it began happening. There were actually three waves of captives who returned.

The books of Ezra and Nehemiah record these returns from captivity.

What was the mood of the people when this was taking place?

When the LORD brought back the captivity of Zion, We were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, And our tongue with singing.

The psalmist says, it was like being in a dream. It seemed too good to be true. We were wondering if we were suddenly going to wake up. “Is this really happening?” they must have asked each other.

They were amazed, stunned. They would shake their heads and begin to laugh, as we do when we are overwhelmed and amazed. It turned into song. Celebration broke out in Babylon; it broke out when they marched west to Israel; it broke out when they first spotted Jerusalem; it broke out when they had completed the new temple; it broke out when they had completed the walls around Jerusalem. No doubt, for some time after that, Jews back in Israel shook their heads, smiled and sang of God’s goodness to them.

They knew it was God, because God had told them they would spend exactly 70 years in captivity. He promised they would return. He even had the prophet Jeremiah buy some land just before the captivity to make the point – you’re coming back.

But when the surrounding nations saw this happening, when they saw this Persian-sponsored second exodus back to Israel, they began to comment:

“Then they said among the nations, “The LORD has done great things for them.”

This was a testimony to the unbelieving nations. This had never been heard of before.

Nehemiah 6:16 And it happened, when all our enemies heard of it, and all the nations around us saw these things, that they were very disheartened in their own eyes; for they perceived that this work was done by our God.

The nations even used the name of Israel’s God – Yahweh. They said, Yahweh has done great things for this people. The grace of God was evident in their lives. His deliverance, His work was outstanding, and even those who did not exist in a covenant relationship with Him had to acknowledge His work.

The Jews agreed with what the unbeliever said.

The LORD has done great things for us, And we are glad.

Yes, say the believers, looking back, God has done great things for us. And as we think on that, we are glad. Why are they glad? Because great things done by God for them reveals that He loves them. He delights in them, and wants to show Himself strong towards them.

How did the psalmist come to this place of gladness? By persistently worrying about tomorrow? By being anxious over what next week or month or year will hold? What was the first step of gaining a firm hope in God’s grace? It was by taking time to reflect on God’s past grace. I see this poet sitting, writing on parchment, and then leaning back, perhaps hands behind head, as he starts to think, and reflect on how good God has been. He sees God’s gracious hand in sending good kings, and prophets, and in sparing the nation from complete judgement; in preserving it with queen Esther, and in assuring it through the prophet’s Daniel and Ezekiel, and now to be back in the land.

“God has done great things for us, and we are glad”.

One of the ways Satan may erode your hope is to keep you so busy that you can never, not even for 15 minutes, put your hands behind your head, and think about what God has done for you. Again and again, the Bible tells us to consider and behold the works of the Lord. God wants His people to stop and reflect. That’s part of the reason He has always set up memorial feasts. Israel had several. We have the baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Every Sunday reminds us of the resurrection. We are supposed to think about God’s grace in our past.

Take time in your quiet time in the mornings, or maybe in the quiet before bed time, or when you can get out and be alone or be in a very quiet place, and think: where did God take me from? Where might I be today had He not? What did He bring into my life? Whom did He introduce me to to help me? What did He supply me with? What did He use to draw me and teach me? What kindnesses, beauties, enjoyments, pleasures did He keep pouring into my life? What has He done in me and changed in me? How has He used me in others? God has worked in you, for you, around you, through you.

Sometimes, just like with the Israelites, it’s the unbelievers who notice how much God has worked in you and around you and comment on it before we do. Our unbelieving colleagues and family have surely noticed what God has done for you. Why should you and I not reflect on it?

Christians too busy to reflect on the past, begin to run dry on gratitude, and soon become thin on faith for the present and future. We need to become aware of how God is communicating love and grace to His people continually. We need lots of backward looks. The result might just be some of the amazement that the psalmist felt. Can it really be? Has God actually done all this? And for me? Who would have thought? As you adjust the focus from what is missing from my life to what I do have from God, you discover what a treasure you are sitting on. And you are filled with joy, even with laughter and you say, “The Lord has done great things for me, and I am glad”

When that’s in place, it leads to something else.

II. A Plea For Present Grace

Bring back our captivity, O LORD, As the streams in the South.

Now what is meant by this? Didn’t the psalmist just say that God had brought them back from captivity? Why a request for God to do that? Well, the return of Israel didn’t happen all at once. In fact, it happened in three stages. Two returns occurred under Ezra, and a third under Nehemiah. Probably the writer is writing before all have returned, and he is asking God to complete this return. He wants more people to return from exile, more Jews to return and populate the land.

‘The streams in the south’ refers to an area south of Jerusalem called the Negev. In the summertime, the streams dry up completely. But when the early and latter rains come, those dry river beds gush with water and even flood. So the psalmist says, we are just a trickle of people returning to Israel. Bring a flood of people back, O Lord. Let crowds of Israelites come pouring in to repopulate and rebuild and regrow and restore this land.

The psalmist has reflected on past grace, and it leads him to plead with God for grace in the present. He hasn’t stopped praying or waiting on God. He hasn’t stopped hoping, looking to God for help. He sounds like another psalmist:

Psalm 123:2 Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters, As the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, So our eyes look to the LORD our God, Until He has mercy on us.

Consider where this prayer is found in the psalm – right in the middle. It is sandwiched between two things: a reflection on past grace in verses 1-3, and promises for future grace in verses 5-6. Past grace pushes you to prayer in the present. Promises of future grace pull you to pray in the present. Both what God has done, and what God has promised to do ought to lead us to pray and wait on God.

That’s why Jesus taught us all those parables on prayer that does not give up.

Luke 18:1 Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart,

Are you still waiting on God for that unsaved spouse, for that hardened child? Are you still trusting Him for grace through the physical disabilities? Are you still looking to Him for the conversion of some hardened person in your life? Are you still seeking Him to turn the heart of our children towards you? Are you still praying for spiritual awakening in your own heart? Or have you become a little jaded and cynical. Have you lost the childlikeness which Jesus said is indispensable, the childlikeness that believes Abba said He would, so we ask Him.

In February, we will again hold a week of prayer and fasting. Another opportunity to say, Bring back our captivity. More grace Lord. Answer our cries for souls, for growth, for Christlikeness, for wisdom, for protection, for provision.

We don’t often come out and say it, but we can reach a place where we decide, “What difference does it make if I pray and seek God? What difference does it make if I pray more? I’ve already prayed and nothing has happened.” Well, that’s what the last two verses in the psalm address. They give a promise, a promise attached to a condition.

III. A Promise for Future Grace

Those who sow in tears Shall reap in joy. He who continually goes forth weeping, Bearing seed for sowing, Shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, Bringing his sheaves with him.

Here is a promise given in verse 5 and expanded on in verse 6. The one who sows in tears, the one who goes out with a bag of seed, and sows while weeping, without a doubt, this one will come in again reaping with joy, bringing in his sheaves with rejoicing. The emphasis here is on a result: joyful reaping produced by a causes, sorrowful sowing.

Remember that Israel was mostly a nation of farmers. Here you have a group of Israelites who have come back to a land that has now been untilled for seventy years. What happens to your garden if there is a patch which gets walked on, and the grass gets burned off, and it gets walked on for about a year? That ground becomes hard. Very few seeds can get in there. Now picture that, with the desert heat of Israel, and nothing but the paws and hooves of wild beasts trampling down that ground for seventy years.

When they come back, they’re bringing seed with them. They’ve got to make a tough choice: do I use this grain to feed those hungry children inside our make-shift house, or do I plant it, hoping for a great crop in several months time. And you see the Israelite man out there looking at his apron of seed, looking back to his house, and thinking of how hunger his family will be for the next few months. He has nothing but faith that this act of sowing won’t cause his family to starve. He dips his hand into the apron, takes a handful of seed, and as he scatters it, tears roll down his cheeks. He is thinking of his wife and children, of the skimpy bowls of porridge, of how sacrificially they will have to live in the days till harvest. He feels as if he is taking food out of their mouths.

But there is a promise for him. The one who does this, the one who goes forth sowing with tears, will doubtless come again, rejoicing, bringing in his harvest.

Psalm 30:5 For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life; Weeping may endure for a night, But joy comes in the morning.

What does the psalmist mean? Is there some magical power in tears? No. This psalm is about God doing great things for His people and their hope in Him. This promise is for God’s people. Those who return to the land, leaving the easy life of Babylon and Persia, who in obedience to God, and in loyalty to His people, leave home and strike out for a new, hard, sacrificial life in Israel, God will not disappoint the faith and obedience of these ones.

Hebrews 6:10 For God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you have shown toward His name, in that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister.

The promise to those who have set their hope on God, and are proving it with deeds of faith, God will not disappoint.

This image of sowing is picked up by the New Testament and is used in different ways. Jesus uses it to picture how the Word is preached and received by different hearts. Paul uses it to speak about financial giving in 2 Corinthians 9. He uses it similarly in Galatians 6. The common idea is, putting something in which doesn’t give you immediate results. You give money, you teach the Word, you preach the gospel, and it is like sowing seed. You don’t see instant results. You have to wait, and pray and wait. These are acts of faith and obedience that believers perform for the glory of God.

This is the wife praying for and witnessing to her unsaved husband. This is the mother working and praying and training the stubborn hearts of her children. This is the church seeking to be faithful to God and His Word in a culture hostile to holiness. This is the church seeking to reach self-satisfied, content secular people with the news of heaven and hell. This is the church seeking to reach the Jewish people with the news that Jesus is their promised messiah. This is the father trying to plant Christians in the dry, hard soil of a worldly, secular, unbelieving culture. This is the father providing for his family in a culture that is dishonest, ruthless, unscrupulous, unkind, that demands more than is fit to give, that calls on you to violate your convictions, your ethics, the Lord’s Day. This is the pastor trying to plant and pastor a church that does not cater to popular culture, that seeks to worship God in joyful reverence, that teaches discipleship, commitment, covenant, fellowship. This is the Christian labouring to keep a prayer meeting or discipleship Bible study going when interest seems so little. This is the missionary who leaves home and familiarity and comfort to go and serve people across the globe, many of whom will be quite unreceptive and quite unthankful. This is the Christian battling a stubborn sin habit that seems like a permanent part of the landscape. It’s the battle with bouts of depression and despair, or with chronic illness. This is the Christian battling a hard heart, a period of seeming silence from the Lord, a period of dryness and unhappiness.

It is when you have to and need to obey, but the odds seem against you, the results seem so little; the work seems so hard; success seems so elusive. Weakness, faintness, a feeling of hopelessness tempts you while you invest, work, give, train, develop, pray, witness, build, teach.

But what is the promise? Believer, if your hope is in God, if you do what you do for the glory of God, for the sake of His name, then doubtless, this season of painful sacrifice and self-denial and unrewarded faith will be replaced by a season of abundance, joy, seeing and experiencing God’s flood of answers.

Does this mean that the psalm is teaching that every earnest prayer gets precisely the answer we looked for? No, any more than he was saying every single seed that the man sowed would sprout. But as a principle, the believer who hopes in God and earnestly seeks God with tears, can expect a season of joy, a season of reaping.

Luke 18:28-30 Then Peter said, “See, we have left all and followed You.” So He said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or parents or brothers or wife or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who shall not receive many times more in this present time, and in the age to come eternal life.”

The general principle of nature is, seed sown in the ground germinates and brings forth growth. Is God less reliable than the earth? Will acts of faith and obedience done because of Him, and through Him and to Him all come to nothing? No, God will make good on what is sown to His name.

God is faithful. Deliverance may tarry, but it will come. Faithfulness on our part is needed – acting, giving, serving, obeying in faith, though the returns seem little now. Continuing to witness, to train your children, to work honestly, to labour for a Christlike marriage, to raise pure and modest teenagers, to preach without compromise, live without compromise. We need to do this even when our surroundings seem like a desert, and there seems like no hope that what we are doing will ever take root and become anything permanent. The principle is, God will turn the weeping into rejoicing. It’s worth enduring and persevering in our hope in God.

1 Corinthians 15:58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

What is meant by the tears and the weeping?

I suggest it means two things: First, there are tears which react to the difficulties we face. These are tears of frustration and pain, tears at the loss, heartache, disappointment. These are tears which face the pain of sowing in a world where the ground is cursed. See, even these tears are blessed, because at least you’re out there sowing. There is no promise for the one who sits at home. The promise of God’s grace and deliverance comes to those who get out of the comfort zone to sow where seed is needed.

But I think there are a second kind of tears here. These are not reactive tears, but proactive tears. These are tears of longing, tears of desire, tears of compassion that we pour out before God because we want His deliverance that much.

There is nothing about tears themselves that moves God. But when we become as earnest in heart as He is, when we mirror His zeal, we are truly abiding in Him, and we can expect to see answers. It is when we draw close enough to God that we experience desires for peoples’ souls, for spiritual growth, for the church’s testimony, for more holiness, that we are moved to tears – then we are close to what James said when he said the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

Hebrews 5:7 who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear,

If our Lord prayed with tears, then a tearless Christianity must be off the mark. Some here have shed tears in prayer for their husbands, and they have already reaped with joy. Some have shed tears in prayer for their marriages, and they have begun to reap. But how often have we prayed, and then when the answer tarried, instead of breaking down into tears, we hardened up into silence and self-sufficiency. When last have you sown in tears before God?

Psalm 56:8 You number my wanderings; Put my tears into Your bottle; Are they not in Your book?

Tears are like fasting. Fasting does not get God’s ear because you have an empty stomach. Fasting gets God’s ear because you become so consumed with gaining God’s deliverance that you don’t want to eat. You are hungry for grace. And tears get God’s ear not because they are rolling down your cheek, but because your heart is so broken over a matter close to God’s heart.

Spurgeon said, “Weeping times are suitable for sowing: we do not want the ground to be too dry. Seed steeped in the tears of earnest anxiety will come up all the sooner. The salt of prayerful tears will give the good seed a flavor which will preserve it from the worm: Our heavenly seed could not fitly be sown laughing. Deep sorrow and concern for the souls of others are a far more fit accompaniment of godly teaching than anything like levity. We have heard of men who went to war with a light heart, but they were beaten; and it is mostly so with those who sow in the same style. Come, then, my heart, sow on in thy weeping, for thou hast the promise of a joyful harvest. Thou shalt reap. Thou, thyself, shalt see some results of thy labor…When thine eyes are dim with silver tears, think of the golden corn. Bear cheerfully the present toil and disappointment; for the harvest day will fully recompense thee.

Matthew 5:4 Blessed are those who mourn, For they shall be comforted.

Jeremiah 9:1 Oh, that my head were waters, And my eyes a fountain of tears, That I might weep day and night For the slain of the daughter of my people!

If we never water the ground with our tears, we may not experience this promise. Once again, this is all about the heart. God wants our hearts. He wants us to hope in Him so absolutely that we fall childlike before Him and weep for deliverance. We weep for conversions, for marriages, for children, for revival, for softness of heart, for repentance, for growth, for missions.

According to Revelation 21, there is coming a day when He will wipe away every tear from our eyes. But that day is not yet. Our day is still one of sowing. Some partial reaping, to be sure, but much sowing. Is your hope squarely on God? Have you reflected on past grace? Does the promise of God’s deliverance together with those reflections drive you to hope in Him, to the point of tears?

Because God says to you, if so, doubtless, you will come again, rejoicing.