How Sweet It Is!
By Pastor Jim May
Have you ever experienced living your dream? Has there ever been a time in your life when you felt like you had to pinch yourself to see if you were really awake or if everything around you was really a dream?
Illustration:
It was just like so many evenings at home after dinner. Jimmy kept playing around in the house while mom and dad were absorbed with the work that always needs to be done and did not notice the time. There was a full moon in the sky and the bright light seemed only to make the dusk of day go on and on. Finally mom glanced at the clock and realized the lateness of the hour and yelled, "Jimmy, it’s time to go to bed. Go up now and I’ll come in a minute to tuck you in."
Usually he would kick up a little fuss but this night Jimmy just went straight upstairs to his room. An hour or so later his mother came up to see if he was asleep. He wasn’t asleep. She saw him lying there staring quietly out of his window at the moon.
"What are you doing, Jimmy?" "I’m looking at the moon, Mom." "Well, it’s time to go to bed now." As he finally settled down, he said, "Mom, you know what? One day I’m going to walk on that moon."
32 years later when Astronaut James Irwin stepped out of the lunar landing module and stepped onto the moon’s surface, that dream came true. He is one of only 12 people to every do so. He was living his dream.
Dreams are wonderful things. You can go places and do thing in your dreams that seem so very impossible in reality. But every once in a while, someone translates that dream into reality through hard work, planning and persistence.
Someone by the name of J. M. Power once said, “The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.”
That’s exactly what happened to Israel after they had been in captivity for many long years under the Babylonians and then the Persians under King Cyrus.
For 70 years, Israel could only dream of being free again. They had rebelled against God, chased after the things of the world, and finally came face to face with the judgment of God against them. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon blew through Israel like a mighty whirlwind and conquered God’s people completely.
Israel, God’s very own chosen nation, now lay in ruins. Vast numbers of the people were taken away to die in slavery in a foreign land. City after city lay in burning heaps and no one was left to rebuild them. What a price to pay for disobedience against God!
God has given us Israel’s history as an example for all who would choose to live in disobedience to His Word, and yet it is amazing just how quickly we fall into the same trap and face the same judgments of God over and again.
Not a week goes by when I don’t see Christians who once loved the Lord and were faithful to God, but now they are trapped in a life of sin and living as slaves to the devil. Their strongholds of faith have been laid waste and their lives have been left in shipwreck. Homes are wrecked, families are destroyed and lives are crushed under the weight of sin simply because we won’t learn a lesson any other way but the hard way.
It took some time for the Jews to finally fall on their face before God and begin to cry out for mercy! Perhaps it was the hardness of their slave masters that drove them to their knees. Perhaps it was the emptiness left inside when the presence of God left them that brought them on their face, crying out to God for deliverance. Whatever it was, they finally realized just how far they had fallen. They needed God’s mercy!
I see folks who are in this place spiritually all the time. I wonder just how far they will have to fall before they begin to cry out to God for mercy! Will they have to lose their family? Will they have to wind up in a prison cell? Will they have to face the death of a loved one? What will it take for them to come back to God? Will they ever turn back, or will they just continue to harden their hearts and walk away from God no matter how much He does to turn them around? I fear for many because nothing seems to reach them anymore and I can only pray that God’s never ending mercy will somehow get to them.
God birthed in Israel a dream – a dream of being free again; a dream of rebuilding their beloved city of Jerusalem with the temple in its walls; a dream of being at home again with laughter, family and friends in a land of plenty. God birthed a dream in them, and when God gives us a dream, He always makes a way for that dream to come true, if we will obey Him.
One day, a baby was born among the Hebrews slaves under the Persians. Nehemiah came onto the scene and he grew up with a dream – a dream to rebuild his homeland and re-establish the worship of the God of Israel once more.
I’m so glad that God will provide not only the dream, but the dreamer who won’t quit, even when the going gets really tough.
I am encouraged when I think about this. I often think of families who don’t know God. How many generations have passed and yet there is no turning back to the faith. Is there any hope for them? Is there a possibility that the generational curse of sin in the family can ever be broken? I’m happy to say that yes it can! God can raise up a Nehemiah at any time and let him be instrumental in turning his whole family back to God.
Some of you have come from just such families where the only time they speak of God is when they are cursing his name, or man that is created in God’s image. They only time they speak the name of Jesus is when they want to make a strong point and they use Jesus’ name in vain to make that point. Some of you have families that haven’t darkened the doors of a true church in many years.
I want to encourage you to keep on serving the Lord anyway. Maybe you are the Nehemiah for your family. Nehemiah didn’t see the city rebuilt immediately, it took a long time for his dream to come true – but one day it did.
King Cyrus of Persia finally gave the approval and against all odds, Nehemiah rebuilt the city walls. His dream had come true and now Israel had a home once again.
It was this dream – a dream of freedom in a new land that finally came true, that prompted David to write one of his psalms. Let us read it together.
Psalms 126:1-6, "When the LORD turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. 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. The LORD hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad. Turn again our captivity, O LORD, as the streams in the south. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him."
Israel was living a dream! Finally laughter filled the land one more time. The joyous songs of praise and singing could be heard throughout the land. The Lord truly had done some great things for them.
Oh that we would all sense the joy that Israel felt!
Can you remember the day and the hour when Jesus set you free from your burden of sin? Can you remember the joy of knowing that Jesus was in your heart? Can you remember how wonderful it felt to be clean for the first time in your life?
How did you ever reach that point in your life where the dream of eternal life and victory in Jesus came true?
First, God had to birth the dream of eternal life through Christ within you. Then God made a way by sending his only begotten Son to die for you. Then God brought you to that cross and by faith you accepted His way and the dream came to pass.
Floods of joy, over my soul, like the sea billows roll – since Jesus came into my heart.
And I’m happy, so happy, as onward I go – since Jesus came into my heart!
My way seems brighter, my road seems lighter – walking up the King’s highway.
There’s joy in knowing, with Him I’m going – walking up the King’s highway!
It’s a highway to Heaven – none can walk up there, but the pure in heart – and by the grace of God I’m walking that highway!
How sweet it is to be living the dream – the greatest dream that could ever enter the heart of man – the dream of being right with God – in relationship with Jesus Christ – anointed by the power of the Holy Ghost – and having Jesus in your heart!
He hath made me glad – He hath made me glad – I will rejoice – I will sing – I will shout for joy – I will dance for joy – I will laugh for joy – and I will forever praise Jesus for turning my captivity around and bringing me back to Him!
But this wonderful walk with the Lord isn’t always a bed of roses is it? There are times when you will have to struggle for a while and prove your faithfulness. There will be many times when you are tempted to throw in the towel and walk away. But that’s all a part of the process, so don’t give up.
The marines have saying, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going”! God wants us all to be a spiritual marine and live by that saying!
Sure there will be times of weeping – crying out for lost souls – crying out for deliverance from the oppressive hand of the devil – crying out for healing for sickness or diseases that will strike us – crying out for deliverance for our loved ones who are bound by any number of sins in their lives – crying out just to hear the Lord or to feel His presence one more time. We all have those time and we aren’t immune to all the things that plague mankind. But we have a Deliverer – His name is Jesus! We have a Savior – His name is Jesus! We have a God who hears and answers prayer – His name is Jesus! We have a Great Shepherd who hears the bleating cries of his sheep – His name is Jesus!
When all these calamities strike – just cry out to Jesus like a little lamb!
Baaa! – Jesus Help me! Baaaa! – Jesus help me! Come quickly Lord! I’m crying out to you God! I need you now Jesus! He will hear your cry and come speedily to your side!
Listen to what David had to say, “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him."
You are bearing a precious seed today – it is the seed of the gospel of Jesus Christ! Go out there and broadcast, spread and plant the seed!
How sweet it is to be called by God, chosen by God, anointed by God and appointed by God to spread the seed to a lost and dying world!
You will go forth spreading your precious seed with weeping for those who won’t hear! You are going to cry for those who will hear and then fall back into their old ways! You are going to cry in agony for those who have yet to hear!
But when the crying is done and the seed has been planted, the fruit of your labor will rise from the earth. God will not let His Word fail, even when it’s spoken from lips of clay.
One day soon you will shout the victory over the harvest. You will enter into Heaven’s gates and right along with you will be all of those who are a part of your harvest. Your sheaves are going with you!
What rejoicing there will be when we all get there!
I am reminded of that song we sing all the time that says –
Oh what singing, Oh what shouting
On that happy morning when we all shall rise
Oh what glory, Hallelujah
When we meet our precious Savior, in the skies!
That’s the day when we will really begin to live the dream! That’s the day that all of your greatest dreams will come true forever! Oh happy day! Oh glorious day! That’s the day when we shall look at one another, in robes of pure white, made righteous by the Blood of the Lamb. That’s the day we shall look at one another with glorified bodies that will never grow old, never be sick, never get tired, and never be hungry again and we will have to say – HOW SWEET IT IS!
