INTRO.- V. 4 Restore our fortunes, O Lord. What happened to the people of God? They lost their fortunes when they were carried off into captivity. This captivity was the period in Jewish history during which the Jews of the ancient Kingdom of Judah were captives in Babylon. The people of God were not “happy campers,” to say the least. Why did this happen? Because the people were unfaithful to God. They were backsliders.
ILL.- One time many years ago I got a call from a local funeral home director, asking if I would preach the funeral for a man from a Baptist church because they didn’t have a preacher at that time. The man was only in his 40‘s and died from a sudden heart attack. I agreed to speak at his funeral and went to call on the family. The man who answered the door was the father of his deceased son. When I introduced myself, he said, “Come on in, we’re all a bunch of backsliders in here!”
Wow! What does God think of backsliders? He loves them just like He loves everyone else. What does He do for them? He disciplines them just like He did His people in the Old Testament when they backslid.
God disciplines His people for their good. We may not like His form of discipline but it’s for our good and it was for their ultimate good. When people who are supposed to know God, love Him and serve Him, but turn away from Him they lose in every way! They may even lose their material blessings, their fortunes, etc. God can take away from people whatever He wants in order to correct them.
ILL.- John Charles Ryle wrote: “It is a miserable thing to be a backslider. Of all unhappy things that can befall a man, I suppose “backsliding” is the worst. A stranded ship, a broken-winged eagle, a garden overrun with weeds, a harp without strings, a church in ruins—all these are sad sights. But a backslider is a sadder sight still. That true grace shall never be extinguished, and true union with Christ never be broken off, I feel no doubt. But I do believe that a man may fall away so far that he shall lose sight of his own grace, and despair of his own salvation. And if this is not hell, it is certainly the next thing to it!”
This may have been something of what the people of God went through in their captivity. And this Psalm is a song of their return to the Lord and what they asked of Him. RESTORE OUR FORTUNES, O LORD. Even in our own backslidden ways we are blessed regardless of whether we have a fortune or not. However, I do believe that when we come to God or come back to God He is willing to bless us in ways we never thought possible.
NIV 1When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dreamed. The meaning is, "It seemed like a dream; we could hardly believe it; it was so marvelous, so good, so full of joy, that we could scarcely believe it was real."
When people turn to God or back to God He will bless them.
Vs. 5 Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. 6 He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him. These verses may actually deal with the blessing of good results in their farming but can be applied to Christian work today. We are supposed to sow gospel seed according to the Great Com.
PROP.- It appears that God will bless us as we bless others with his message, with the gospel. Here’s God’s plan. (outline by A. Naismith)
1- The going of the servant
2- The flowing of the tears
3- The sowing of the seed
4- The mowing of the harvest
I. THE GOING OF THE SERVANT
5 Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. 6 He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow...
Did you ever hear of P. H. Welshimer of Canton, OH? Welshimer accepted a call from the First Christian Church of Canton, Ohio on January 1, 1902. He stayed at this church for the rest of his life, 56 years, before his death on August 16th, 1957. Under Welshimer’s guidance the Canton congregation became one of the largest churches in the US and the largest Christian Church in the country. Welshimer himself published a number of books, sermons, articles, and tracts. I believe it was P. H. Welshimer who said one time, “If we want them coming down the aisle then we must go down the street.” The “going” must be done somehow.
Matthew 4:18-20 “As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." At once they left their nets and followed him.”
The going is important. You catch no fish unless you GO fishing. Fish don’t come to you. You have to go to them if you’re going to catch them.
COULD THIS BE OUR PROBLEM? But how do we go? 30 or more years ago we might go door-to-door, knocking on doors and inviting people to church. And occasionally, it would work but it apparently, doesn’t work as well today. For one thing, many people have been turned off by door-knockers, selling religion and many other things.
ILL.- Recently, we had a guy come to our door around noon when I was eating lunch. He was persistent even though I told him I was eating lunch. He wanted to talk to us about some kind of healthcare program. When I kept telling him that I was in the process of eating my lunch, he said, “Can I come back at 7 tonight.” I said, “No,” then he offered another time and I said, “No.” I wanted to say, “What part of the word NO do you not understand?” I wasn’t mean but he was certainly persistent.
I think the greatest way of “going” with the gospel message is to be open to the people around us, especially, to those who have problems for one reason or another. These are the people who are more open to the gospel. They are hurting and help and we know that the help they need is the Lord.
I Peter 3:15 “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”
The going is a matter of being open to the people around us. Do they have a need? Do they need Christ? Be quick to listen and then share Christ who can turn their life around, bring forgiveness, etc.
II. THE FLOWING OF THE TEARS
5 Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. 6 He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow...
ILL.- R. A. Torrey wrote: "One of the mightiest soul winners I ever knew was Colonel Clark of Chicago. He would work at his business six days every week. And every night in the week the year round five or six hundred men would gather together in that mission hall. It was a motley crowd: drunkards, thieves, pickpockets, gamblers and everyone who was hopeless. I used to go and hear Colonel Clark talk, and he seemed to me one of the dullest talkers I have ever heard in my life. He would ramble along and yet these five or six hundred men would lean over and listen spellbound while Colonel Clark talked.
"Some of the greatest preachers in Chicago used to go down to help Colonel Clark, but the men would not listen to them as they did to Colonel Clark. When he was speaking they would lean over and listen and be converted by the score. I could not understand it. I studied it and wondered what the secret of it was. Why did these men listen with such interest, and why were they so greatly moved by such prosy talking?
"I found the secret. It was because they knew that Colonel Clark loved them, and nothing conquers like love. The tears were very near the surface with Colonel Clark. Once in the early days of the mission, when he had been weeping a great deal over these men, he got ashamed of his tears. He steeled his heart and tried to stop his crying, and succeeded, but lost his power. He saw that his power was gone and he went to God and prayed, “Oh, God, give me back my tears,” and God gave him back his tears, and gave him wonderful power, marvelous power over these men."
Give me back my tears! Could this be our problem? Have we no tears for the lost?
We ought to cry out like Jeremiah, “Oh, that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!” (Jeremiah 9:1)
III. THE SOWING OF THE SEED
6 carrying seed to sow... The seed.
ILL.- A seed taken from a 600-year-old rattle necklace in South America has germinated and grown into a plant. The seed germinated in 1968 and grew to six feet and flowered. But we have older seed than this and it still bears fruit!
ILL.- His minister had considered Charles G. Finney “a hardened case.” At 29 years of age, he was a rising young lawyer who had never owned a Bible. Later, he added one to the reference books in his law library. Then, gradually the Bible replaced his interest in Blackstone and the Statutes of New York. His heart was changed and he said farewell to his clients with the announcement that he “had a retainer from the Lord Jesus Christ to plead his cause.” And plead it he did in America and the British Isles to the lasting benefit of multitudes. This lawyer turned evangelist, who was permanently retained by Jesus Christ, founded the Broadway Tabernacle in New York City. He became the second president of Oberlin College and urged the claims of the Gospel upon more hearers than any other man of his generation. It happened because a “reference book” (the Bible) somehow got into Charles G. Finney’s heart.
ILL.- Sometime ago a man took his worn New Testament to a bookbinder to bind it with a fine Morocco leather cover and to print “The New Testament” on the edge in gold leaf letters. At the appointed time he returned to find his New Testament beautifully bound. The bookbinder had one apology, however: “I did not have small enough type in my shop to print out fully the words on the edge, so I abbreviated them.” Looking on the edge of his Book, the man saw—T. N. T., the powerful chemical explosive! And it’s true! The word of God is God’s dynamite to get to the heart of man and change him.
Romans 1:16 “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”
Isaiah 55:10-11 “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”
IV. THE MOWING OF THE HARVEST
6 He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him.
ILL.- For over thirty years the Salvation Army and William Booth in particular were subject to some of the most vile persecutions that Christians suffered in modern times. But the General lived to see the day his army would be honored around the world. His own King Edward VII invited him to Buckingham Palace in 1904. All the persecution and trials of the previous decades must have seemed insignificant to Booth as he heard King Edward say, “You are doing a good work—a great work, General Booth.”
When the king asked Booth to write in his autograph album, the old man—now seventy-five—bent forward, took the pen, and summed up his life’s work: Your Majesty, Some men’s ambition is art, Some men’s ambition is fame, Some men’s ambition is gold, My ambition is the souls of men.
That’s it. That should be, must be our ambition as well whether we preach or not. Booth’s ambition was God’s heart. God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. (II Peter 3:9). I Timothy 2:4 “God wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.”
ILL.- Edward Kimball (Dwight L. Moody’s first Sunday School teacher) said: "The first meeting I ever saw him was in a little old shanty that had been abandoned by a saloon-keeper. Moody had got the place to hold the meetings in at night. I went there a little late; and the first thing I saw was a man standing up with a few candles around him, holding a black boy, and trying to read to him the story of the Prodigal Son and a great many words he could not read out, and had to skip. I thought, 'If the Lord can ever use such an instrument as that for His honor and glory, it will astonish me. As a result of his tireless labor, within a year the average attendance at his school was 650 and 60 volunteers from various churches served as teachers. It became so well known that the just-elected President Lincoln visited and spoke at a Sunday School meeting on November 25, 1860."
It was while on a trip to England in Spring of 1872 that he became well known as an evangelist. Some have claimed he was the greatest evangelist of the 19th century. On several occasions he filled stadium of 2,000 to 4,000 capacity. In the Botanic Gardens Palace, a meeting had between 15,000 to 30,000 people. When he returned to the United States, crowds of 12,000 to 20,000 were just as common as in England.
Moody believed in preaching the gospel of Christ and sowing the seeds and look what happened! We would call it amazing. He might have called it “amazing grace.” And the gospel seed still convicts the hearts and converts people to Christ.
We may not be doing the work like we should but we must keep on, keeping on as best we can. The harvest will come if we sow the seed.
CONCLUSION---------------
More than praying, “Lord, restore our fortunes,” it seems that we need to pray, “Lord, restore our fire and passion for people.” The blessings will come when we attend to the Lord’s work.
“Seek ye first the kingdom of God (the extension of His kingdom on earth) and His righteousness and then all these things shall be added to you.” Matthew 6:33
Steve Shepherd, shepherd111@hotmail.com
