Sowing in Tears 2020 08 09
Psalm 126:5,6
This is a very different summer in Canada and the United States. A pandemic has been reason for our governments at various levels to greatly restrict our freedom of movement. From late winter to date, we have faced restrictions on gathering and travel, been told to maintain a “social” distance from one another, limited in the ways we are allowed to worship and now, in many places, have been told to wear a mask when we go anywhere. Spring began, not with nice warm weather and a sunny looking future, but with cold, wet weather and no end in sight for what amounts to a near global lock-down. Some of us wondered if the ground, itself, would ever warm up in time to plant our gardens or if we would even get a harvest from our planting. What a picture this year started out as for gardeners, and likely many farmers, of sowing in tears. Maybe we were wasting out time! But thanks to God’s bountiful kindness, the ground did warm up, and spring when on into summer with a perfect combination of sunshine, warm nights and plenty of rain for a bountiful harvest. What a great picture of how God often takes something that looks hopeless, and turns it into a blessing. We ought never to give up while we work in the great harvest fields of God. The outlook may look impossibly hard (how do you do one on one evangelism in a pandemic?), but God has it all under control.
Psalm 126:5,6
What a tremendous picture of the work that Christ has called us to as Christians! It’s not easy work. We many never see the results of our hard work in this life, but we will see them in the end. We go out sowing in tears, but we will come in to heaven rejoicing, bringing in our sheaves! We may plant many seeds, and another may harvest the results. That’s God’s business. 1Corinthians 3:6 “I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.”
The point is that there IS a harvest, even though it may look hopeless.
I. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.
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The picture is of poor farmers casting the last reserves of their food out as seed, and the joy that comes from an abundant harvest.
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Ecclesiastes 11:1 “Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.” In some places, such as the Nile delta and others where the land flooded in the spring, the farmers would go out on the flooded land in little boats, literally throwing their seed, the grain they made their bread from, out on the water. As the water receded, the soaked seed would quickly sprout in the saturated ground.
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It’s risky business to take your precious seed, seed that could be ground up into flour for life-giving bread, and plant it in your fields in hope of a harvest. What if something went wrong and it didn’t grow? What if wild animals or thieves got it?
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In the case of the captives in Babylon, and in other times throughout history, the return and rebuilding (sowing) has been difficult, wearisome, and worrisome, but the end has been joy. Even when they had the walls of Jerusalem rebuilt, the gates hung, and heard the word of God preached at home for the first time in generations, they wept, yet when they understood and believed the word of God, their tears turned to joy “And all the people went their way to eat, and to drink, and to send portions, and to make great mirth, because they had understood the words that were declared unto them.” Nehemiah 8:12
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II. Weeping
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Weeping at the difficulty of the task;
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Again, we have the picture of the sorrow of the farmer going out to plant, knowing that planting is just the beginning of a long, hard season of work that he MUST go through, if he is going to enjoy a good harvest.
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What a fitting picture this is of the Christian working in the fields of the Kingdom of God!
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If we’re going to reach the lost, we have to go forth.
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If we’re going to reach the lost, we have to care enough for them to go forth. Their plight is AWFUL! They’re on their way to hell! They’re on their way to a Godless eternity, separated from Jesus Christ, the source of all joy, in a place of torment reserved for the devil and his angels. Do we care enough to go forth?
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III. We are bearing precious seed
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The farmer’s seed is precious seed, a necessity for farmers throughout the centuries. If the seed produces no harvest, both it and their food supply is lost.
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Remember the widow who served Elijah in 1Kings 17. She was about to eat the last of her meal – ground seed – and die. It was precious, life-giving seed. Without this precious seed, the people will die. (Beirut just lost the majority of their stored seed.)
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The precious seed we carry as Christians, is the word of God. Though it may be a great burden to carry it forth, it is precious seed and worth every hardship – its fruit is eternal life.
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An elderly evangelist I know once told me that it is difficult to reach people with the gospel in the USA. He said that it is ten times more difficult in some places, including the west coast and some of the big cities around the country. Then he said it is ten times again more difficult to reach people with the gospel in Canada. Does that mean we should give up? NO! We just need to work harder!
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Notice the evangelist didn’t say it’s impossible. Think about it! If a farmer gave up without planting, he surely wouldn’t have a harvest! Canada is a tougher place to farm than the United States, too. We have a shorter growing season, which quickly decreases as you move north, yet we still reap a bountiful harvest. We just have to work a bit harder. The results of that work makes it worth every bit of effort that goes into it. Imagine what it’s like in Europe! Yet the missionaries aren’t quitting!
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Without this precious seed, the people all around you and I will perish for eternity. Their plight is desperate, their hunger eternal, their fate terrible. We have the life-giving precious seed that will save them!
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IV. Rejoicing
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Those who go out to plant their precious seed WILL come again rejoicing. Not every seed that is planted produces fruit, but if you plant enough, there will definitely be a harvest
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Just as a farmer who by faith and with care spreads his precious seed rejoices at the harvest…
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We who have the privilege of taking the gospel to the lost if we will do as we have been commanded to do will one day rejoice
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We WILL see the power of the gospel. Romans 1:16 “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”
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1Corinthians 1:18 “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.”
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V. Bringing in the Sheaves
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After the planting and faithful waiting comes the harvest.
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There are twelve months in a year, and in those months, a farmer is constantly busy, yet the harvest for the whole year takes mere days. It takes a lot of hard work, patience, sweat, tears and faith to be a farmer, yet in the end, there is great joy at the harvest, when the crops that will feed him for another year are brought in. It was worth it all!
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Reaching the lost with the gospel is hard work. We need to start knocking on all the doors on the Sunshine Coast, then knocking on them again, bearing the precious seed of the gospel of Jesus Christ to these folks. There are many different statistics out there, but one thing is true – not everyone will even talk to you on the first visit, nor the second, nor even the third, but many have by the eighteenth! What is a soul worth?
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Never should the task be considered hard enough to stop us! What about what Paul endured so that the gospel continued down to you and I today? “Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.” 2Corinthians 11:24 – 27
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Like our great Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Paul gladly went through every imaginable difficulty, including death, for the joy that was set before him. When you go out bearing precious seed, you will DOUBTLESS come again with rejoicing, bringing those with you who have believed the gospel
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Though you might not see all the results of the seeds you plant in this life, you will see those results on resurrection day. It doesn’t matter if it’s more difficult where you live than in another place. You live here. Good! Plant where God has put you to plant, and keep planting until he takes you home or moves you elsewhere. If it’s hard, don’t quit; work harder!
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