Wednesday, February 12, 2020

The Way Of Weeping



“They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.  He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing brining his sheaves with him.” - Psalm 126:5-6

Desperation is fertile ground for prayer.  The proud, hard, and disobedient are not going to get desperate about the things of God.  They may find themselves in desperation, but it will be met with perspiration.  Choosing mans means, and cunning to deliver them; not God’s.  To the humble Christian, there is power in desperate prayer.  When you reach the end of yourselves and cry out to God: “Lord!  I need you!”  Claiming in faith: “our sufficiency is of God.”  

The Psalmist while living in an agrarian society uses the analogy of sowing and reaping to illustrate spiritual truth.  There is four months from sow to reaping.  It takes a lot of time, money, and energy to get the seed into the ground, and seed is costly thing. Furthermore, much is riding on what is sown in the earth.  Therefore, seed is precious.  Then you must wait four long months, with the fate of your crop in the hands of God.  Only in harvest will you receive a return on your investment.  On your faith.  The psalmist says they that sow in tears shall reap in joy.  Why tears?  Why not knowledge, or understanding?  Why not faith or belief?  One could argue that a man who sows in tears has knowledge, understanding, belief, and faith; at least in the things of the spirit.  Tears enunciate the desperation of the heart.  Emotion that comes from a desperate love, desperate lack, or sometimes both.  Either way, weeping is brought about by a heart that is longing.  One who will sow in tears understands the gravity and frailty of our own sufficiency.  They understand and have knowledge (mingled with faith and belief) that unless God steps on the scene there will be no hope, and certainly no real harvest.  They embrace that the Lord of the harvest must be involved, or they will starve.  If you are rejecting the tear-filled prayer route and leaning on your own strength; laboring in that lost condition, then you should weep; for your soul is lacking the precious power of God.  If you are engaged in desperate prayer, and find yourself weeping take courage, because their will come a time of rejoicing.  Would that we all walk in the way of weeping, and we should weep, we should weep because we are in a desperate need of God (saint or sinner).  We need the grace of God, and the blessings of God.  Only God can do it.  The sower who will weep, shall reap in joy. Devotion and desperation are the language of tears.  Only the penitent man will find this place of prayer, and only the spiritual man will seek it.  Seek it and come to understand that God’s harvest is not grain, wheat, or barley (or whatever they can be sold for); but the souls of men.  We are called to be labors in the field.  I don’t believe the devil trembles at our organization, or quakes when he is made the subject of our oration.  He is not intimidated by just you, or me, or your church.  However, when God’s people, believe God’s Word, and desperately pray, fervently pray, weep, cry, and beg for God to do something in us as well as in our land; then the devil trembles.  Satan’s demons come running out of hell to derail us.  

If we want to bankrupt the devil’s coffers, first we must bankrupt ourselves.  We must get desperate about serving the Lord, saving the lost, and obeying God.  Then, and only when, we have come to the end of our ability, our wisdom, our passion, our plans; will we find the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, the instrument of soul winning, and the power in prayer.  With that, out into the world we walk, weeping and sowing; only to come again rejoicing bringing in the sheaves.