Psalms 126:5-6 They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. [6] He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
l. INTRODUCTION -- TEARS
A. General
-Even after having spent twenty years working in the medical field, the human body still has the ability to amaze me. I am amazed at its precision and its ability to repair itself. I am astounded at the resilience of the physical heart that serves as a pump that out-works anything man has ever built. I am amazed at the capacity of the nervous system to process information and direct impulses throughout our bodies without a single directed thought. I am amazed at the ability that the body has to bring small amounts of air into the lungs and mix this with the blood to give us energy, the very breath of life. I am amazed at how the body responds to the insults of surgery and works to heal itself.
-I am continually amazed that despite the fact that the great majority of people in this world abuse their bodies with all sorts of different things, that the body continues to work directly opposed to those abuses and compensate in a vast array of ways.
-But rarely do we consider the importance of tears and the great impact they play in our lives.
-Consider what would happen without tears:
• We could not see. . . Tears actually help with visual clarity.
• We could not blink. . . Tears provide lubrication for our eyelids to blink over our eyes.
• We would have infections in our eyes. . . Tears help to prevent large amounts of infections before they can gain entrance into the eyes.
-Furthermore:
• Tears contain a fatty substance that helps our eyes stay moist.
• When we cry our tears have a different chemical makeup. If we are hurting either physically or emotionally a protein is present in the tears. If an irritant gets in our eyes, the tears are almost 100% made up of water.
• Another important function of tears is that they bathe your eyes in lysozyme, one of the most effective antibacterial and antiviral agents known.
-Consider with me that we are brought into this world amidst tears. Before we ever gain a breath, the pain of childbirth forces tears from a young mother’s eyes as she brings her own portion of joy into this world. . . . but that joy comes with the price levied in tears.
-Around that young mother, there comes more tears. . . . not tears of pain but they are rather tears of joy. This, you see, is how tears of pain and joy can exist singly in a life.
B. Biblical
-Before a rain drop ever touched the surface of the earth, the tears of Adam and Eve had fallen in sad failure.
-Tears in the Bible are apparently in order with some of God’s greatest men.
• Joseph wept.
• Hannah wept.
• David wept.
• Hezekiah wept.
• Ezra wept.
• Nehemiah wept.
• Jeremiah wept (in fact, his head was a fountain of tears).
• Peter wept.
• Jesus wept.
• Mary wept.
• Paul wept.
• John wept.
-We find in our tears a number of things:
• Sadness.
• Blessings.
• Repentance.
• The ministry of tears.
• Love.
• Cleansing.
• Power.
• Joy.
• Hope.
• Feelings.
• Desire.
• Anger.
• Fear.
• Pain.
• Goodness.
• Holiness.
• Intercession.
-Tears could be described in a thousand different ways and a thousand different paths could be described that tears forces us to walk.
ll. THE TEXT OF PSALM 126
-Our text brings us to a very important point of revelation.
-When one looks into the manners and customs of the Bible, there is an understanding that these people who were sowers of the seed would often do so under great duress.
-They often were under the heavy constraints of limited resources and the seed that they took to plant was almost as if they were taking food from the mouths of their children simply to plant for the harvest. Every precious seed that was cast into the ground was very valuable. It was crucial that a yield be brought from this seed cast into the ground. The sower would sometimes plant in doubt, fear, and distress.
-There were the pressures of an enemy coming into the field and sowing tares. There were the concerns of the wayside, the thorns, the rocks, and the birds overhead that could steal the seed from the ground.
-There was a great burden on the mind and heart of the sower. To plow the troublesome soil was heavy work and it brought sweat, tears, and pain from the body of the man who worked the fields.
-Yet, there is a great spiritual law that prevails (very unpopular with our generation, I might add) and that is, through tribulation we enter into the joy of the Kingdom. God means for us to reap in joy but first we must sow in tears.
Acts 14:22 Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.
-This concept meets us at the very outset of the beginning of our walk with God. We come to the Lord in a midst of great repentance. We are made aware of the crucial sacrifice that was made for our salvation. We are forced to seeing a dying Savior. We see a mystery in the Cross that will forever be without understanding. We see His wounds but behind His wounds we see our wounds. No man who ever really opens his eyes to these facts will be able to contain his weeping.
-To really see the Cross of Christ, to really see a suffering Savior, and to mix this picture with prayer will do more than any other effort to help us to have sorrow for offending the love of God.
A. Tears In Two Directions
-This text opens up to us the avenue of tears. Tears can go in to directions. They can be very limited to the earthward or they can soar toward the heavenward.
1. Earthward
-If you are human then you will have many of your tears that are bound to this earth. They prevail upon us and will continue to have a hold on us until we are released from our fleshly bodies.
-These tears are limited to the purposes of serving our emotions. This is not all bad for there are times that tears over earthly things can serve as stimulants toward the things of God. . . . but generally speaking the tears from down here will limited to this life alone.
a. Tears from Our Fears
b. Tears from Our Failures
c. Tears from Our Rejections
d. Tears from Our Disappointments
-These tears are in a world all of their own and a whole message could be spent on them.
2. Heavenward
-Then there are tears that can pull you into a whole different spiritual realm. They are the very messengers sent from God to pull us into the world of being a saint of God, a man of God, a man with a crowning purpose in life.
a. Tears over Our Shortcomings of Service
• When tears are forced from our eyes and hearts over our shortcomings of service for God, we are on a correct path.
• When we are confronted by a past that was more productive for God and we are now living in a very sterile present and a very dim future, tears can begin to roll down our faces and drip to the dusty soil.
• When tears fall because we realize that we are allowing so much of life to get by us despite the very blessings of God in our lives, we are reaching for God.
-This is the whole feeling that Peter felt when the Bible describes his weeping as “bitter.” Such weeping of repentance is often bitter but the bitter will always be the better in the end.
I heard Bro. J. T. Pugh tell a story of one of the four men who made such a dramatic impact on his life. He mentioned that this man was an evangelist back in the 1940’s. The nation was still in the midst of great financial throes from the Great Depression and from the Second World War. He said that this man was preaching a revival in a little small town in the deep South and that there had been a breakthrough and that people were receiving the Holy Ghost and being baptized in Jesus Name and that great progress was being made in this little town (he did not mention the geographical location). In the midst of this great spiritual revival, this man began to worry about his family. His worries were related to the financial pressures and difficulties because the church could not afford to sufficiently pay him. Although he was having the opportunity to work as a laborer during the day and then conduct revival services at night, he was still under great constraints. More or less deciding on a whim, he made a very crucial decision.
He spoke with the pastor and told him that he had heard that he could go to a city quite a few miles away and work in the cotton fields and pick cotton with his family and then he would come back and restart the revival services. From hearing Bro. Pugh tell the story, I got the impression that the pastor tried to reason with him and even help him as much as possible with his finances to keep him from going but to no avail.
The man took his family and went to the town so they all could pick cotton during the harvest season. They started picking cotton and were into the third week and were gaining some good ground as day laborers picking cotton. However, one morning during this third week, the man was up cooking breakfast before his family had gotten out of bed. He was cooking a few flour biscuits and firing some bacon when for some reason he spilled the entire contents of the hot grease down his leg. The hot grease essentially “cooked” his entire leg and there he was lying in the floor, writhing in pain, crying out in distress, when his wife come running into the kitchen to see what was the matter.
This evangelist for three long days and nights found that his entire body was saturated in the pain and seemingly every home remedy that they tried was unable to touch the pain in his body. During one of those nights of pain, with tears flowing down his cheeks, whether in pain or in prayer, but either way, still tears, God came to him and begin to speak gently to his heart about the crucial decision that he had made in leaving this revival in the town that he had left. In the stillness of the night and the power of his tears, this man made a commitment to God that as soon as he could recover that he would return to the place of that revival.
The days passed and soon he was up and about. He went back to the cotton field and even though his leg was still somewhat painful, he lugged that cotton sack about picking cotton. He out-picked everyone in the fields because he found a purpose and that purpose was to get enough money to get himself and his family back to the point of revival.
-Tears come to us when we realize that we have followed the wrong path in our service for God. The tears help us to find the path and re-chart the course.
b. Tears of Heartfelt Worship
-Our worship must be marked by tears. When we look at the life of the Lord, again and again we note that Jesus poured out His heart. His words were mingled with His tears.
• Twice He will weep over Jerusalem.
• He weeps at the death of Lazarus.
• He was full of lament and anguish at the Last Supper and openly shared it with the Disciples.
• He wrestled with great tears in the Garden of Gethesemane.
• He endured the pain on the Cross and finally cries out when His life is finished.
-Such tears that we see in the life of Jesus are the tears of invitation to a point of true and exalted worship. His entire life invites us to the passage of tears and once you pass through that door, nothing will ever again remain the same.
-The tears will mark you for the rest of your life. There is a reason for this. The Lord’s tears were exalted on His enemies.
-This is something that we cannot fathom as to how that someone would spend tears of worship, tears of prayer, tears of hope, tears of blessing, and tears of purpose and apparently “waste” them on His enemies.
-But the fact of the matter is that is exactly what happened:
Romans 5:8-10 KJV But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. [9] Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. [10] For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
-Once we come to understand that the tears that come from the life of the Lord were for the reconciliation of his enemies that should cause us to have an even greater love and hunger for God.
c. Tears of Intercession
-The whole scope of Paul’s ministry was marked by his tears that he prayed for the young churches being established in New Testament times.
-His prayers of intercession was marked by many tears both day and night:
• He prayed against the beastly adversary in Ephesus.
• He prayed for the young budding ministries of Timothy, Titus, and Silas.
• He cried out against the rulers of spiritual darkness.
• His prayers were marked by the tears of his own suffering and pain.
• He prayed for unity among the young churches.
• He prayed for revelation and for the Kingdom to come.
• He prayed against the besetting sins and the weights that he knew would accompany the young saints along their path.
• He prayed for a spirit of encouragement to enter into the darkest days of discouragement.
-His prayers would cost him greatly, but there was a great accomplishment that came when Paul prayed. Entire cities were turned by this great man’s tears of intercession.
-Bro. Sam Balca was here just a few weeks ago on a Sunday night and we had a great service, particularly the altar service. After the service, he was selling some books that was an autobiography written by his father.
-John Balca was one of the early Apostolic pioneer missionaries in Eastern Europe. He was particularly focused in the country of Yugoslavia in the 1930-1950’s. In his autobiography, he writes of the many difficulties that God helped him to overcome in the establishing of an Apostolic church in this region of the world.
Excerpt from My Life With God: An Autobiography of Jan Balca:
Persecution in Janosik
A few days after that Brother Cereveny and I visited the saints in Janosik where I was scheduled to perform a marriage ceremony. I preached a message about marriage, and then the young couple came to stand in front of me to take their marriage vows according to the Word of God.
Suddenly, the door of the church burst open, and a policeman with a rifle marched in. He shoved the barrel of the rifle into my chest and yelled, “Hands up!” Everyone present looked on in fear and wondered what was going on. This reminded me so much of when they came to arrest Jesus and He said, “Be ye come out, as against a thief, with swords and staves?” (Luke 22:52). Then the policeman took me to Lokva and handed me over to a member of the Interior Ministry.
He angrily began his interrogation, “What are you doing in Janosik?”
I replied, “I was invited to perform a wedding.”
Then he yelled, “I will teach you a lesson! You will no longer wander around here and there and talk to people about some God who doesn’t exist!” Immediately he began to slap me in the face. While he was beating me he asked, “Does God exist?”
I replied, “Yes! And He created everything!”
He beat me even more furiously and yelled some more, “Then why did God allow the War (World War ll)?”
I answered as best as I could in the midst of the blows, “It wasn’t God! It’s people’s hate and the evil of sin in the heart of man that causes devastating wars.”
Then again he asked, “Does God exist?” Again I replied, “Yes, He exists!”
He became even angrier and began to beat me with his fists while calling me all sorts of names and blaspheming God. The third time he asked, “Does God exist, and where is He?”
I replied as always, “Yes! God exists, and He is eternal, and He is sitting on the throne of His glory in heaven. On the day of His terrible judgment we will all stand before Him to receive what we deserve; a reward or punishment, according to what everyone has done in his earthly life.”
When I confirmed my faith in God and His existence the third time, he became furious because he could not force me to deny God. He snatched up a revolver and began to beat me with it, raining blows all over my body. He thought with this outburst he would scare me into submission. In his furious anger he hollered, “Where was God when the fascists were murdering our women and children? How could He have watched this awful injustice?” As he was ranting and raving, I suddenly felt sorry for him. I pitied him because he was under the influence of the devil, not knowing he was blaspheming God who is a God of love who loves all people. I was just getting ready to reach out to him and comfort him as an unhappy soul who was on his way to hell, when he hit me in a sensitive spot on the chest near the heart, and I began to lose consciousness. Only then did he stop beating me for fear of killing me. He became afraid because President Tito had just passed a law that killing was no longer allowed until there had been a fair trial. He called for a policeman to take me to jail.
They also brought in Michal Cerveny, and they interrogated and beat him in another room. He described these events in greater detail, and eventually wrote a booklet about it. Then at night they led us out of the prison. The man that beat me came to us and said, “You need to teach people to tolerate each other in love so that people live in peace one with another.” I replied, “We certainly do that because we know that our God is a God of love, and He wants to save everyone who believes in Him and repents of his sins.” Then he curtly dismissed us, “Get on the train and go home, not back to Janosik!”
We traveled home and on the way we praised the Lord for giving us patience and for counting us worthy to suffer for Him like the apostles.
-We will pay a great price in intercession for revival and for the salvation of those around us who are lost.
lll. CONCLUSION -- TALK TO YOUR TEARS
• What shall we do with our tears?
• What shall we do with the dilemmas that cause them?
• Where shall we flee from our tears?
• What is the remedy for those who have tears?
• What shall we do with our tears?
-We shall talk to our tears. There should not be anything sorrowful about planting a crop. It is generally a time of the year that the earth is beginning to awaken from the harsh cold of winter.
-Sowing seed is really no harder than harvesting. But what we have to remember is that there is a responsibility that comes with sowing. It is something that must be done.
-One thing that we discover about planting is that it will not wait for us while we cry. The demand of the fields will not wait for you to solve all of your problems and if we are going to enjoy the yield of the harvest in the harsh cold of winter, then we must talk to our tears.
-This psalm teaches the tough but necessary lesson that there will always be work to be done whether I am emotionally up or down, whether I am discouraged or not, whether I am prayed up or not, whether I feel like it or not. . . . and you must understand this. . . . it is good for us. . .
-You can never say, “I am tired and weary and discouraged and terribly disappointed and I will not plant anything this spring.” If you do not work in the spring, you will not eat in the winter.
-You can never say, “I cannot pray for so-and-so, because I am so discouraged and I cannot see any progress in it.” If you cannot persevere in prayer, if you cannot be a weeper, if you cannot extend your heart and your tears heavenward, the harvest will be limited.
-What you can say is this, “I am troubled and discouraged. I cry when the milk spills. I cry if the phone and the doorbell rings at the same time. I cry for no reason at all, but the fields needs to have some seed planted. That is the way that life is. I do not feel like it, but I will take by bag of seeds and go out into the fields and do my crying while I do my duty. I will sow in tears.”
-The lesson is in talking to your tears. . . . . When there are tasks to be completed, when there is a task of raising a family, when there are the demands of a job, when there are demands of the bill collectors. . . . When your days are filled with tears. . . . then talk to your tears. . . . . “Tears, I feel you. You make me want to quit life, but there is a field to be sown in tears (dishes to be washed, meals to prepare, cars to be fixed, work hours to be committed to, sermons to be dug out, and prayers to be prayed). I know that you will wet my eyes and face several times today, but I have work to do and you will just have to go with me. I intend to take the bag of seeds and so. If you come along today, then you will have to wet the rows.
-Then with perhaps a dimmed eye and blunted understanding, I must tell you that your tears will not be with you forever. The very fact is this. . . If you do your work with tears and all then in the end you will reap a harvest of blessing. God has promised this.
-The simple work of your sowing will bring sheaves of harvest, and your tears will be turned to joy.
Philip Harrelson
November 19, 2005
barnabas14@yahoo.com
