THE SONGS OF ASCENT – PART 8 – PSALM 126 – SOW IN BITTER TEARS AND REAP THE JOYFUL HARVEST
Psalm 126:0 A Song of Ascents.
[A]. NOT A DREAM, NOT AN ILLUSION, BUT NOW REALITY
{{Psalm 126:1 “When the LORD brought back the captive ones of Zion, we were like those who dream.”}}
“I just can’t believe it. We were resigned forever not seeing our motherland again. It can’t be possible. The whole thing seems like a dream. It does not seem real.”
Can you see the minds of the exiles as they returned from Babylon under the decree of Cyrus? It was like a dream come true, an impossibility that became reality. For 70 years they were in despair, captives in a foreign land where the Lord had banished some of them. They were totally married to idolatry before Nebuchadnezzar’s overthrow, but from that point onwards they never returned to idolatry again.
God works with principles. One of those is to shake us very solidly when we venture off the path and into sin. It is God’s desire we depart from the horrible thing and keep on the straight path.
In Babylon their hearts longed for their homeland but it was a dream they would ever attain their own land again. Sadness filled their lives, but the chastening of the Lord was good for them. There is a Psalm written on this very theme –
{{Psalm 137:1-6 “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. Upon the willows in the midst of it we hung our harps. There our captors demanded of us songs and our tormentors mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion.” How can we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget her skill. May my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not exalt Jerusalem above my chief joy.”}}
This is one example of writing in the bible that is overflowing with pathos. Their sadness in Babylon is so evident.
These pilgrims were among those who were able to return from captivity and the whole of God’s deliverance was like a phantom, like a dream that has no substance. Imagine that delight as they wended their way in ascent to Zion for the Feasts.
[B]. SUCH JOYFUL PRAISE BECAUSE THE LORD HAS DONE GREAT THINGS
{{Psalm 126:2 THEN our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with joyful shouting. Then they said among the nations, “The LORD has done great things for them.”}}
Praise God always for the “Then”. The dark night THEN gives way to the soft dawning light. The time of terror and being afraid THEN passes into peace and calm. The tormented guilty conscience is THEN revived with the joy of the Lord upon repentance. I am just so delighted that there are two passages of scripture of special significance in the bible. Without these the Christian who falls into sin would be much deprived of the help from God to lift him and her up again. Where would he turn in desperation? Well God has provided these for us.
The first one is Psalm 51, which is a prayer of repentance when David sinned against God and Bathsheba. For 9 months he had locked away a burning and guilty conscience, but with the prophet Nathan’s intervention, it all came bubbling out. That Psalm is a wonderful example and guide for us in repentance and restoration. In that prayer David prays this – {{Psalm 51:12 “Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and sustain me with a willing spirit.”}}
The experience the Jews passed through was a bit like that – 70 years of misery that passed into joy.
The second passage is simply two verses but they are so comforting, so delightful, and so strengthening. Here they are – {{1John 1:8 “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 1John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”}}
God does not want us to be unjoyful. It is foreign for a child of God even when the world situation is closing in and wickedness prevails. There is an inner peace and joy shed in our hearts and lives by the Holy Spirit.
Verse 2 talks about the mouth and the tongue. God created us with emotions and sometimes these get out of control and lead us into sin, but in our verse, it is the mouth that echoes the laughter and joyful shouting because the Lord had delivered them from captivity.
A person still in sin is in captivity to wickedness, the devil, and to Satan’s garrison. Only the blood of Jesus can deliver that person and free all of us from captivity. THEN our lives sing out the praises of our God in joy and gratitude and in freedom as He delivers us from captivity and slavery.
[C]. THE LORD HAS DONE GREAT THINGS FOR US
{{Psalm 126:3 “The LORD has done great things for us. We are glad.”}}
PART 1
This is a very powerful verse and it contains two parts where Part 2 depends on Part 1. Here are the pilgrims singing as they make their way to Jerusalem and they are reflecting on all the Lord has done for them. They recall very recent memories of their time in Babylon and the difficulties they endured. Then the Lord delivered them. They were able to recount the joy in the return trip they made just as their fathers and grandfathers had to recall all the time while in Babylon, the great sorrow of leaving Jerusalem in chains under captive domination for a foreign nation.
The Lord has done great things for us. Do you think so? Are you able to relate what great things God has done for you? Too often they are shrouded in, and under a cloud. Why is it we are slow or forgetful to recall the good things the Lord has done for us; not just good things, but GREAT things.
What are some of the reasons we can’t recall the great things God has done for us? These can be so subtle and just creep in unnoticed. We can identify some of them”-
[1.] Sin is like cataracts that develop and obscure and confuse the clarity of understanding. When the Israelites left Egypt, the people actually took their idols – {{Ezekiel 20:6-8 on that day I swore to them to bring them out from the land of Egypt into a land that I had selected for them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands. I said to them, Cast away, each of you, the detestable things of his eyes, and do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt. I am the LORD your God. They rebelled against Me and were not willing to listen to Me. They DID NOT CAST AWAY the detestable things of their eyes, NOR DID THEY FORSAKE THE IDOLS OF EGYPT. Then I resolved to pour out My wrath on them, to accomplish My anger against them in the midst of the land of Egypt.}}
What did the people start to do once God delivered them from Egypt? Well, they complained and absolutely forgot the great things God had done for them in His deliverance. Their sin shut up the memory of the great things God did for them. It is the same for us. When we keep sinning the memories of the great God fade away.
[2.] This is a busy world and family lives can get clouded over with activity and the demands of work and other pressures. In that environment the reminder of the great things of God can fade or take second or third place.
[3.] Your Christian life becomes not your priority but lesser things are. Sport, entertainment, worldliness, socialising, and a whole lot more of these Satan finds to occupy your time and activity.
[4.] The company you keep can have a profound effect on you when that company is not Christian and has no desire for Christian things. Many a Christian has become shipwrecked by getting into the wrong company or wrong group, such as getting into politics. The goodness of God can quickly be shoved back in one’s memory.
[5.] The troubles of the world and family on your shoulders are a genuine problem. Many with a good heart say, “I want to find more time for bible study and fellowship but there is so much to do.” Be careful you don’t forget all that God has done for you.
[6.] Being sloppy and careless in the bible will have harmful consequences. He who lives in the King’s palace has a mind filled with glorious things, but he who lives in the haunts of criminals with have a darkened mind of error and evil.
[7.] Complainers, negative people, whingers, always critical – these people never see the goodness of God around them and can hardly focus on the great things of God. They always carry a spirit of complaining and negativity.
God has done great things. Search for them and write them down.
PART 2.
Verse 3 ends with “We are glad.” We are glad because of what the Lord has done for us. We rejoice in it. We are thankful. We constantly recall His goodness to us in the land of the living. But what are these things we are thankful for?
“Count your blessings name them one by one. Count your blessings, see what God has done. Count your blessings name them one by one, And it will surprise you what the Lord has done!” That is the chorus of a great hymn but it contains such a practical side. What are some of the great things the Lord has done that make us glad?
In the first place, for those pilgrims having returned from Babylon, they were glad for the Lord’s deliverance from bondage; so must we be glad for our salvation. Be glad, for the Lord keeps you. He loves you. He goes before you. He has destined a great eternal future for you. He gives you songs in the night. He provides for you. Your blessings are renewed each morning. Great is His faithfulness - - - and I am sure you can add more to that list.
[D.] RESTORATION FROM CAPTIVITY AND FAILURE WITH SIN
{{Psalm 126:4 “Restore our captivity, O LORD, as the streams in the South.”}}
We need to place this verse in context for it applied to the pilgrims who had returned from the exile in Babylon. What they prayed for was a restoration from their captivity. The Lord had rescued them and brought them from the Babylonian bondage and restored them in their own land once again. The Lord had done great things and they were glad.
However it does not stop there. Their prayer for restoration meant they wanted what the Lord began, to continue. It had to be built on. It had to advance. In this matter of restoration there are two aspects. One is material and the other spiritual. I feel confident that in the minds of the pilgrims, some of whom returned from Babylon, that it was the spiritual they wanted. Their nation had been so deep into idol worship that it seems impossible to break but the Lord did that. He banished a lot of the nation then restored them in their own land.
However a life with God must not be static but ongoing and always advancing. That I feel is the true meaning of “restore our captivity,” for they wanted godliness to reign. Don’t we desire the same? As our nations decline daily now we desire what we once had but has past, and we know it will not return. In these last days the world’s progression is downwards which makes it all the more important for restoration to the truth and correct conduct.
Christian today, do not be satisfied with your salvation and stop there. Progress ever onward and build on your salvation. Restore those captive years when you were in the devil’s kingdom, and make your time for the Lord, profitable in righteousness and growth. It is sad that some Christians are still desiring to remain on the bottle (Americans may say formula) and never to be weaned from it.
Turning off the Lord’s path will result in sorrow and tears. Recovery from backsliding and sinful failure is not easy but it is essential to realise certain truths.
1. God endeavours to bring the erring one home. He will convict through the Holy Spirit to convince of sin and lost fellowship.
2. You must own your sin. Never try to make excuses for it. To do so means an incomplete repentance and a lack of genuineness to come back home to the Lord from the path of failure.
3. The repentant person must be humble and contrite. Read Psalm 51.
4. Remember the glorious verse – If we confess our sins He is faithful and righteous to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
5. You will sow in tears but you will reap with joy - and we will now move to that last part of the Psalm.
[E]. TEARFULNESS IN THE LORD’S WILL, WILL END IN JOYFUL SHOUTING
{{Psalm 126:5 “Those who sow in tears shall reap with joyful shouting.
Psalm 126:6 He who goes to and fro weeping, carrying his bag of seed, shall indeed come again with a shout of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.”}}
These two verses are so applicable to the pilgrims who returned from Babylon. We can see them singing away up the ascent to Jerusalem, that city of their joy. In a sense they are now coming home. Just think for one moment how these verses apply to Israel. The captives sowed in tears when carried away to Babylon, deported from their homeland BUT now they are reaping with joyful shouting. The returning captives sang with joyful shouting having taken their harps from the willows in that strange land and now they play in freedom.
Benson mentions the sowing of the corn in the ground, a hard process which could be hard and tearful but then he continues, [[They commit it, however, to the ground, where for a time it lies dead and buried. “A dark and dreary winter succeeds, and all seems to be lost. But, at the return of spring, universal nature revives, and the once desolate fields are covered with corn, which, when matured by the sun’s heat, the cheerful reapers cut down, and it is brought home with triumphant shouts.”
Thus the released Jewish captives had sorrow, and cause of mourning, on account of “the fatigue of travelling from Babylon into Judea; the melancholy prospect of a long depopulated country and ruined city; the toil necessary to be undergone before the former could be again brought into order, and the latter rebuilt; these considerations could not but allay their joy, and even draw many tears from their eyes” but “they are here comforted with a gracious promise, that God would give a blessing to the labours of their hands, and crown them with success, so that they should once more see Jerusalem in prosperity, and behold in Zion the beauty of holiness.”]]
Benson quotes Horne – [[“Here, O disciple of Jesus, behold an emblem of your present labour, and your future reward. You sow, perhaps, in tears; you do your duty amid persecution and affliction, sickness, pain, and sorrow; you labour in the church, and no account is made of your labours; no profit seems likely to arise from them. Nay, you must yourself drop into the dust of death, and all the storms of that winter must pass over you, until your form shall be perished, and you shall see corruption. Yet the day is coming when you shall reap in joy; and plentiful shall be your harvest.”]]
These two verses were well know in days gone by and were the basis for the wonderful hymn that is not sung very much at all in these days of Laodicean degraded music in the churches -
Sowing in the morning, sowing seeds of kindness,
Sowing in the noontide and the dewy eve;
Waiting for the harvest, and the time of reaping,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.
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Refrain:
Bringing in the sheaves,
Bringing in the sheaves,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves;
Bringing in the sheaves,
Bringing in the sheaves,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.
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Sowing in the sunshine, sowing in the shadows,
Fearing neither clouds nor winter's chilling breeze;
By and by the harvest, and the labour ended,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves. [Refrain]
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Going forth with weeping, sowing for the Master,
Though the loss sustained our spirit often grieves;
When our weeping's over, He will bid us welcome,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves. [Refrain]
My fellow believers, the road we travel in our Christian walk and witness may be hard and tearful, but you must never lose hope because there comes a time when we will come again with a shout of joy, bringing our sheaves with us.
The Lord bless you all.
ronaldf@aapt.net.au
