"They that sow in tears shall reap in joy."— Ps. cxxvi., 5.
This little psalm from which I have taken the text is one of the most exquisite in the whole Psalter. Every word in it is saturated with the spirit of the singer, and because it arose from the deepest emotion it is pure poetry. It is the intensity of the psalm which is bound to capture the mind of anyone who reads it with sympathy and understanding. The words are few, because the heart of the singer is so very full. He cannot say much, because no man can say much when the heart is strained—when life seems too great and wonderful and mysterious for its meaning to be distilled into speech. We can speak about life when the tension is relaxed, when an interval of quiet is given to us for meditation, but in the moment of fullest living, when we feel most deeply, the lips are hushed in silence, or at best give forth a few broken words. Intensity of feeling and carefulness in the choice of language never go together, and yet how often it is that the few broken words which life wrings from us carry fuller tidings than the most careful utterance. Well, the beauty of this psalm is of that sort. It is the beauty of intense emotion—of crowded feelings—the poetry of the full heart.
Now, after what I have said, I think we can safely make one deduction. This psalm must have been written very near to the experience of which it tells. If it had been written from a later standpoint, if the man had been looking back over long years, and describing an event which had happened in the far-away past, he would have put it in a different way. He would have told it to us at greater length. The very fact that he can only give us a few broken and disconnected sentences is sufficient to let us know that his heart was still feeling the shock.
What was it that was filling this man's heart to overflowing and reducing his "lips to broken speech? I can tell the story in a few sentences. This is a psalm of rejoicing at the return of a people from their long exile. For some generations they have been in captivity in Babylon. Circumstances have forced them to sing the lord's song in a strange land. We can imagine, some of their sorrows. They were a homesick people, longing, above all things, to get back to their native land. The strangeness of their surroundings took the heart from every joy, and added weight to every sorrow. As the years passed on and the old people dropped out of the ranks one by one, all that was left to this little band of captives to tell them of their home was their memory of a few old stories. Soon it came to be that no child of Israel had ever seen his own land. Jerusalem was in their songs, but not one of them had seen Jerusalem. But that only intensified their longing. And at last the day came, and this psalm is pitched to the quickened heart-beats of that day. The man who writes these words had just seen his home for the first time, and all the intensity of hopes long cherished and desires delayed put a strain upon his heart. At last the longed for moment had come. May, I follow the expression of his feelings as they come from his lips?
The first thought is very natural—it would be our first feeling in such circumstances:— "When the Lord turned again, the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream." It all seemed too good to be true. He had been singing about the glories of Zion. for years, and here he stood in Zion itself. His feeling was that he would wake up in a moment and find himself in Babylon again. All great emotions induce that mood. A crushing sorrow bewilders the mind so that it cannot grasp what has happened as real. A great and unsuspected joy will have the same effect. It takes us into a world which seems all unreal — a fairy realm which we feel may dissolve any moment into thin air. These captives had hoped and prayed for the Lord to turn the captivity of Zion. But when the thing actually happened they could hardly believe it was true. This singer puts the mood of a whole people into a sentence:— "When the Lord turned the captivity of Zion we were like them that dream." But, after that comes the note of joy. It is absolutely true to human experience that the joy should not be put first. The first feeling was that of unreality and bewilderment. That is what we all feel when we experience the greatest joys. There is a moment of emotional calm — a sort of numbness — and then, after the likeness of a dream has passed, comes the moment of full realisation.
And here it is described for us in a few scattered phrases:— "Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with ringing." The city rang with shouts. The spirit of a people broke from the fetters which had been laid upon it. First they were like them that dream — wandering dazed through the streets — then they broke into laughter and singing. And after that they began to think of what others would be saying, for this little nation was proudly conscious that they had a mission to fulfil in the world. They thought of the word that would be passed from mouth to mouth among the surrounding nations. "The Lord hath done great things for them." And in a mood of joyful confidence the singer takes these words and re-echoes them, as his own conviction, "The Lord hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad." It is all such a perfect picture of the moods through which the people passed at that great time. Any of those phrases might have been heard in the streets of Jerusalem, as these returning captives passed to and fro.
But then this psalm passes from light and picturesque touches to a deeper spiritual message. The writer turns from recording the impressions of a great event into a teacher who unfolds its underlying truths. The captivity becomes of him a -symbol of all the stress and trial, the frustrated purposes, the disappointment and sorrow of the human lot. Every man and people has, sooner or later, to pass through that time of testing and bitterness which Israel tasted in Babylon. The heart is cast down. The fulfilment of desire is far away. Even hope is an occasional visitor. The day's work has to he done, but no great things shine beyond. There is nothing large end splendid to live for. That was the mood of Israel in Babylon, and it may well stand as the fitting symbol of the human heart in certain phases of its experience.
So at all events is the truth as this old singer sees it, and, seeing that, he makes of Israel's return a rainbow of hope for every captive spirit. In the story of his people he reads the spiritual history of humanity, and brings from it a message in which many a Gentile heart has found rest and comfort. As the Almighty has turned the captivity of Zion so He will surely turn every captivity. After exile — home, for every child of man. Trouble, disappointment, sorrow — what are these but stages in the soul's pilgrimage? not halting-places where the soul must sink to rest in despair. "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy." He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed with him, shall without doubt come again with rejoicing, bearing his sheaves with him." That is the spiritual message which the experience of this singer and all his fellow-countrymen had fitted him to proclaim. A few years ago, Zion had seemed a distant hope, and Babylon a hard imprisoning fact. Now his feet stood in Zion's streets and trod her ways. So God deals with all men. Wherever there is a Babylon there is a Zion at the end of it; a distant hope it may he today. it shall be a firm reality to-morrow.
With all the confidence in his heart the singer sends his song of triumph out into the world — "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth weeping shall, without doubt, come again with rejoicing." And, truth to tell, this song which broke from this man's lips so many centuries ago has brought the spirit of triumph into many a dispirited heart.
Well, can it bring the spirit of triumph to us? We need it. There is no doubt of that. Men and women to-day have to tread the same road as their forefathers. The incidents in the spiritual history of man are unchanged. There are disappointments and sorrows which crush human hearts to-day as bitter and long as any that Babylon could show. And there are lips which are saying the same things that many an Israelite (as Isaiah tells us), repeated during the exile— "My way is hid from the Lord." Face to face with many lives, the thing that one longs above all things to give them is the spirit of triumph — just the simple confidence that there will be a reaping in joy for them. We talk sometimes about the darker and heavier ministries of life as though they were in themselves good things, but I am more and more convinced that trouble and sorrow may work as much havoc with the human soul as pleasure and success. Whether anything that happens to us is a ministry depends upon how we interpret it. And if we interpret sorrow as an end, if the eye can see nothing beyond it, if hope fails, then it is an evil, as it is an evil in countless lives. So many lives are just waiting for a message of joy to bring .release to them. They want good news to lift them up. That is our common need. A firm hold upon the promises of God brings strengthening and enrichment to the character.
We cannot accept this message of triumph simply because it comes from the lips of this singer. That would be asking too much. The history of Israel seems too far away from us to make it the foundation of our assurance. But the message that I want to bring to you is that we may partake in the spirit of triumph that every soul which to-day is sowing in tears may know without doubt it shall reap in joy; How may we know that? Well, quite simply— there are two grounds for that assurance. In the first place, God has led every life which has put its trust in Him to an end of joy. Every life — not only Israel, but every life.
This is the unanimous testimony of every heart, the united message of man's spiritual experience. I do not want to speak much about that; I would rather leave you to ponder it for yourselves. All I want to emphasise is the fact. Can you find any soul whom God has left in the gloom? Can you recall any man or woman of God who has not finished the course on the note of victory and joy? I cannot think of one. It is a wonderful thing, this record of man's spiritual experience, the testimony of the souls pilgrimage.
There are many dark passages in it - records of trials and sorrows and persecutions. There are chapters which tell of bitter disappointment, others filled with the voice of complaint and protest. In that book there is a great section over which you can write the word "exile." Sorrow and tears are in it:— "My tears have been my meat day and night, while mine enemies say unto me — Where is thy God?" But that chapter never stands at the end. Light always succeeds to darkness. The book of every life which has God in it ends well. It may not be an easy happiness, but it tells of joy. The voice of the soul rings out with tidings of good.
This is the message of all spiritual experience:— "They that sow in tears' shall reap in joy." My text is not an isolated word, but a great chorus of testimony, .and so the first way in which to get the spirit of assurance is to learn of God through the great record of His dealings with men. And the second way, which confirms the first, is to learn of what God is directly through the revelation which He has given us, and, above all, the revelation in Christ. The more I live with the thought of Christ, the more clearly do I see that to Him God meant joy. I see it in His words —"It is not the will of your Father that one should perish." "The hairs of your head are all numbered." It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."
His actions tell the same tale—lives lifted out of the misery of sin and the tortures of suffering, lives to which He gave back a forfeited joy. But, above all, He Himself breathes that truth — His coming to us at all—the surest evidence that God loved the world. You cannot, with Christ in your heart, think that God meant any life to end in tears. Christ means triumph, overcoming joy. That is the harvest of which He is the husbandman.
These are poor words, but all words are poor when we try to put into speech the richness and fullness of the life which Christ came to bring to every soul that lives. But all that matters that our hearts shall be opened to receive the message which God sends to us. Here in the words of this old singer is the message that life with God ends in triumph; that, in spite of tears, the harvest is joy. The message is attested by every life which has been lived with God, and, above all, it is sealed with God's love and purpose in Christ. Is there not sufficient support then, on which to lean? The surest antidote to despondency and gloom is to turn to the record of God's dealings with those who have put their trust in Him. It is an unfaltering tale of victory:—
Finding, following, keeping, struggling.
Is He sure to bless?
Saints, apostles, prophets, martyrs,
Answer "Yes."
"They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth shall without doubt come again with rejoicing."