DUNCAN/He surrounds His people
If you have your Bible, please turn with me to Psalm 126. Have you ever had a deliverance of the LORD in your life that was almost too good to be true? You really wondered if you were dreaming. But the place you are now is so difficult that you wonder if it could ever come again like that. You could picture in your heart’s memory the feelings of that old deliverance and you silently cried out, “Do it again, LORD. Do it again. I need You as much now as I needed You then. I need this deliverance now as much as I needed it then, maybe more.” That’s what this psalm is about. This psalm is a memory turned into prayer. And this psalm is standing here like a stone of testimony saying, “Don’t let those memories enter your mind without moving on to prayer because if He was faithful to you then, He will be faithful to you again.”
The Effect of the LORD’s Marvelous Restoration on the Hearts of His People
First, in verse 1 he writes, “When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.” Have you ever had one of those experiences? You’ve had those times when your dreams were so vivid that you wondered if they were real. The psalmist is saying that this restoration was so surprising, so overwhelming, that we were like those who were dreaming. It felt almost too good to be true.
And then he writes in verse 2, “Then our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with shouts of joy.” So, whereas we were burdened in our distress to the point that the only thing we could choke through our throats was our tears and our cries, now those same mouths are filled with laugher and with joy. We just didn’t think we could laugh that way again. And then the LORD delivered and there was laughter and joy. But notice the second part of verse 2 — “Then they said among the nations, ‘The LORD has done great things for them.’” It results in the nations testifying to the LORD’s power in restoring His people.
Your trials and your distresses don’t belong to you alone. They belong to the people of God. And the lessons that the LORD is teaching you in those things are lessons that are meant for all of us, and when He delivers you in those things He means for all of your brothers and sisters to rejoice with you and to praise Him when those deliverances come. And so, we ought to give testimony. We ought not let those memories fade. We ought to retell those stories often. It’s why I love to talk to new members that I’ve not gotten to know and hear how the Lord brought them to faith in Christ. It never gets old hearing how the Lord redeems people out of sin and into His family, out of darkness and into light, out of condemnation and into pardon and acceptance and adoption and new life.
This joy bears witness to the nations. “And even the nations say, ‘The LORD has done great things for them.’” And then, and then the psalmist says, “You know what? We sang of that restoration too. We weren’t going to let the nations be the ones to say the LORD has done great things. No, we’re going to take up that chorus ourselves” and so you see it in verse 3. Here’s the song, “The LORD has done great things for us, and we are glad.” The psalmist has that memory vividly in his mind. “I remember it, LORD.” Whether it was coming out of Babylon in captivity, whether it was a deliverance from siege or famine, whether it was a deliverance from going after other gods, whatever it was, there was a deliverance.
A Prayer for the LORD to Restore the Fortunes of His People
And then suddenly from that past the psalmist comes back into a present in which he needs that deliverance just as much now as he needed it then, and the memory becomes a prayer. And he’s got two pictures in his mind for what he wants the Lord to do. Look at verse 4. “Like streams in the Negev.” The Negev, the south country, is that arid, parched desert south of Judah that touches up to the wilderness of Sinai. It’s wilderness! And in the summer, it’s dry. The psalmist is thinking, “That’s where I am. I’m in the summer, in the Negev, and it’s dry as a bone and there’s not a green branch in sight and there’s no grass; there’s no sign of life. But when the winter rains come, these gullies will overflow with water and almost overnight grass and flowers will grow up around these waters.” The psalmist knows that the LORD will restore His people.
And then the image switches and you see it there in verses 5 and then repeated and elaborated on in verse 6. “Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy.” Notice his use of this farming metaphor. The ground is prepared, the seed has been planted, all the preparations have been taken, but so much of the return, so much of the harvest, is entirely up to things over which you have no control whatsoever — Too little rain, too much rain, rain at the right time, rain at the wrong time. The farmer must work and then pray.
But there’s something even on top of the agricultural metaphor here, isn’t there? It’s not just sowing and waiting to reap; it’s sowing in tears. What does that mean? The psalmist is saying, “LORD, though we are sowing now in tears, would you give us a harvest that comes with joy?” Look at verse 6. “He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy bringing his sheaves with him.” It’s a statement of faith. It’s a statement of hope. It’s true for every believer, for we may sow in this world with tears, but we will reap in the world to come with joy.
Do you hear that word, believer? An Old Testament saint, five hundred years before your Savior trod this earth, can pray with that kind of faith and that kind of hope. Will you let him out-do you? Will you let him out-trust you? Will you let him out-hope you? You, you who have seen the Son of God spill His own blood for your joy, will you not have this hope and greater? Oh, brothers and sisters, this psalm does not promise that we will not face these kinds of moments in life, but it does promise this: we need not face them without hope and without the prospect of a joy that we remember being experienced again. It’s God’s Word; it’s not my word. It’s God’s Word; believe it. And if you believe it, pray it.
The Rev. Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III is the Chancellor/CEO of Reformed Theological Seminary and the John E. Richards Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology. He is also currently serving as President of RTS Jackson.