When God’s Dreams Come True

Subject: When God’s Dreams Come True

Psalms 126:1-6 “When the LORD turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. 2 Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The LORD hath done great things for them. 3 The LORD hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad. 4 Turn again our captivity, O LORD, as the streams in the south. 5 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. (KJV)

Introduction: Psalm 126 is called an ascension Psalm. It was one the song sang as the children of Israel went up to worship at Jerusalem. Some associate this psalm with the time after Israel was released from the Babylonian Captivity, although Israel’s history is filled with occasions of great deliverance by the hand of God. Yet we cannot accurately date this psalm, but we do know what was happening. The psalmist says, “When the Lord turned again the captivity.” The psalmist clearly understood that it was by the Lord's permission Israel were led into captivity, so only by his power they were set free.

When the Israelites had served in Egypt four hundred years, it was not Moses, but Jehovah, that brought them out of the land of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage. In like manner it was Jehovah and not Deborah that freed them from Jabin after they had been vexed twenty years under the Canaanites oppression. It was God and not Gideon that brought them out of the hands of the Midianites, after seven years' servitude. It was he and not Jephthah that delivered them from the Philistines and Amorites after eighteen years' oppression.

Although in all these cases, God used Moses and Deborah, Gideon and Jephthah, as instruments for their deliverance; but it was by the power of God they were delivered.

After seventy years of captivity, it would be the Lord's power that delivered Israel again. It was not government’s policy, but God's wisdom, that, overthrew the Babylonians and gave to King Cyrus the victory, and put it into his heart to set his people free. I want to examine Psalm 126 more closely today, because it provides for us a pattern for action as we come to celebrate his name. The Children of Israel had gone into Babylon with a promise from God. God promised a day of restoration and a day of return. After 70 years of Babylonian captivity, those promises were just about all the people had left of their religious heritage. They were held in slavery, the temple had been destroyed, the city gates had been burned with fire, and they no longer celebrated temple worship. During those 70 years, those who remembered Jerusalem told their children about a land the children had never seen. Jerusalem was no more real to the children of the exile than a fable, or a story of the past. The only thing left to them was God’s promise to redeem his people out of slavery and to restore them to their home and to restore them to His worship. In Jeremiah 29:10,11, God promised, “For thus saith the LORD, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place. 11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” God’s dreams will come to pass. So He reminds Israel, “I know what I have decreed concerning you; even favor and deliverance in my appointed time, and not annihilation and destruction; so ye shall have a happy and victorious end and your desired and expectation. Suddenly, without warning or expectation, God will turn things around.

The Babylonian government collapsed overnight. No one predict it or expected it. All the attention was being given to the feast of Belshazzar without knowing the empire was on the verge of collapse. The Medo-Persian Empire conquered Babylon. Then King Cyrus gave an unexpected decree freeing the Jews. There were over an hundred nations held in captivity, but Israel received their release. The Medo-Persian Empire had overcome great Babylon. What would it mean for the 128 nations in captivity? Think about what happened in a single night. Babylon is overthrown, a new regime comes to power and an emergency summon has been made. All people must appear, the new monarch has an announcement. “You Jews are free to return to your homeland.” When God’s Dream Come True, we should celebrate God’s Release and Restoration.

1. Celebrate God’s RElease and Restoration! Psalm 126:1 “When the LORD brought back the captivity of Zion, We were like those who dream.”