In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of having a passion for the harvest, which refers to reaching out to people with the message of God. He encourages listeners to look at the harvest and learn about it, rather than making excuses or delaying action. The speaker shares a personal story about his daughter's behavior and how it moved him to tears, illustrating the depth of his love and concern for her. He emphasizes that God wants believers to share in his heart and sufferings, not just seek his power, and encourages them to agonize for the things that break God's heart.

He wants us to become givers like him, a riverbed for his life and a hydrant for living water and one who is a steward of mysteries and a burning and a shining light to shine in the faces and out among the people who sit in darkness. It's our highest joy when we begin to see that happening through our lives. We may look at the Apostle Paul or some preacher we admire or some missionary we've read a biography about and we admire them and of course we never think in our soul we'd ever be able to be like them. But you see, it's really true that God wants to use each of you that way. I have chosen you and I have ordained you that you would go forth and bear fruit, much fruit, and that that fruit would remain. Well, we hear that and so many times we don't realize that to do that I've got to decrease and he's got to increase. So we make our plans and we form our budgets. We do all these things as church members or as ministry participants and sometimes we see little results. I'm thinking of several years ago when General Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, first sent a team into this one inner city and they had prayed, they had laid their plans, they had seen their budget met, they were ready to go, they went in, they labored and they sacrificed and they did all of these things and nothing happened. And they began to say, what is wrong? Why have we done all these things? We've done it right. We've done it by the book and nothing's happened. But we know that it's right. We've prayed and we're in unity with each other. What's wrong? And they wrote General Booth a letter detailing all of their frustrations and telling what had happened and asked him if he had any counsel that he could mail back to them as to why that there was no fruit and no success. And General Booth wrote back a letter and inside it had two words. Try tears. Try tears. And they realized all of a sudden that although they had been mechanically oriented and planning, that they hadn't gotten their hearts involved with the heart of God about this matter. And they went to prayer, not just any kind of prayer, but God's kind of prayer. And I want to just take you to Psalm one hundred and twenty six. And I want to read there what I would say is the key to successful ministry and really and truly how to become a fruit bearing Christian. God gives a guarantee that he will use you in a powerful way. But this psalm is an amazing psalm. It's the greatest factor, perhaps in fruit bearing what we're going to read here. I'm going to read the whole psalm because I think it carries a whole message. Psalm one hundred and twenty six. When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like those that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter and our tongue with singing. Then said they among the nations of the heathen, the Lord has done great things for them to the world, notices genuine joy and exaltation of God. The Lord has done great things for us and where we're glad. And so the prayer comes turn again, our captivity, turn our captivity, Lord, as the streams in the south. And then these key words, they that sow in tears shall reap in joy. And he that goes forth and weeps bearing precious seed shall, God says, without a doubt, come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. When you go forth and you sow your seed and you want to share the gospel and you want to be used by God, I see a lot of people are going forth in a quest for nickels and for noses and they're trying to have success and all kinds of results. But they're coming back empty handed compared to what's on God's heart. And the word of General Booth would come, try tears. Whoever goes forth sowing in tears will reap in joy. You see, I would call this liquid prayer, not just any kind of prayer, but liquid prayer. It's the exclamation point of prayer. When you talk about showers of blessing and mercy drops, I think the first drops are teardrops. Those are the mercy drops that God would have us think about tonight. You see, the seed of the word will not grow on dry ground. It's got to be softened through what Deuteronomy calls soft showers. Why are tears so important? I'm talking about tears tonight, tears for the Christian, tears of of harmony of heart with God. Tears show that our hearts are involved. You see, this is a ministry of life. It's not just intellectual persuasion when we share the gospel. It's not just strategic outreach when we go to the 1040 window. It's getting hold of the heart of God. And tears show visibly and forcibly that our hearts are involved. And I would say I remember reading this somewhere, but if our eyes are dry, it's probably because our hearts seem parched or they're dry as well. When was the last time you wept in the presence of God for one of a hundred reasons, perhaps over your own sin? You ever wept over your sins in the presence of God all alone? If you haven't ever really wept over your sins, have you ever wondered why you haven't ever wept over your sins? When was the last time you wept over a loved one in the presence of God in the spirit of the Lord leading you? When was the last time you wept in the presence of God for your enemies that are persecuting you and want to get rid of you out of the heart for the issues of life? And it says here the context of weeping and sowing precious seed, which is surely the word of God going out in the harvest to sow and expect results. The context of that weeping and sowing is when the Lord turns the captivity of Zion, the Zion here are the redeemed. And here the church is in captivity to something. We've already talked about that, what we're in captivity to. Perhaps it's the way of thinking of this world. Perhaps it's to money. Perhaps it's to the visible. But the captivity that I'm thinking of tonight is the captivity that the best man in the Old Testament at that time, Job, was in captivity, too. It says in the first chapter of Job that Job was the best man on Earth. Nobody was like him. And God said, there's no one like him. He's a perfect man. He's mature. He fears God. He's uncontaminated and he hates evil. And so what a man of God he is. And all these bad things happen to Job. And he kept on praising God. Bless the name of the Lord. He gives good things. He gives bad things. I'm going to praise him, though he slay me. I'll praise him. Some people would say Job got what he said. But let me tell you, the Bible says in all these things, he sins not with his lips. I mean, he had bereavement, bankruptcy, boils and a badgering wife, and he still praised God. And that's going a long way, brother. But you see, all the way through the book, he talks about rehearses all the blessings of his life and and what was happening. And he gets to the end of his of his trial and it says his friends came and said all these things to him. And at the end of the book, Job prayed for his friends. And the Bible says, and the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends. What was he captive to? I believe this. He was captive to his own ideas about his own self. He was captive to his own ideas of his own righteousness. You see, many Christians, all they ever live for is to be blessed for their own spiritual growth, to get all that God has for me to possess my possessions, to go to this conference and that conference and to only go to this meeting when the Lord really speaks to them or to hear Reverend Downspout and not Reverend Upstart. They want to hear exactly what they want to hear. And you know something? We're captive to ourselves. And the Lord turns the captivity of Job when he takes his mind off himself and prays for others. We can't can't wait for others if our hearts are captive to our own problems and our own trials and our own burdens. And we're self-centered. And so when the Lord turns the self-centeredness of the church, the the introspective existence for our own blessing, when he turns that, then we're like those people that dream. It's like the streams in the desert that that erupt. And then finally, we can be like this verse and we can begin to weep as we sow the word of God. You see, the greatest reapers in history. In public have always been first, the greatest weepers in private, in prayer, because you see, it starts in private before it goes in public. And that's a law of the spirit. The greatest reapers in history have been the greatest weepers in private, sowing in tears a special kind of prayer. And I'm asking you tonight, if your heart's involved, if you could really say, Christ, I want to share in your nature. I remember once several years ago, well, many years ago now when I was in seminary, I was unmarried at that time and I was the roommate with this judge in Fort Worth. And he was a six feet, eight inch guy, really godly man. And he was from a family. His father taught at the cemetery, a seminary. I did not mean to say that. I honestly did not. He taught at the seminary and his mother was a woman of God. He had four brothers. I'm really serious. I want to apologize for saying that because I used to say that. And and my wife rebuked me. My mother in law rebuked me for it. And and I was convicted and I had to ask forgiveness of the Lord. And I've said it so much that I was in the habit and I said it. And so I'm sorry I said that. It's despising that which has been invested in me. And I feel bad about it, but I can't change it. It's like an arrow. Once you shoot it, it's gone. And it's like a feather in the wind. You can't catch it. That's what gossip is like, too. But I was called one night to spend the night at Steve's house. His father had gone out of town on a ministry trip and his mother was there with his four brothers who were upstairs. So I was up there spending the night with them. We had fellowship and about the middle of the night, about 12 o'clock, everybody was asleep and I was thirsty. So I went down the stairs and made my way around the corner into the kitchen trying to get some water. And as I came down the stairs, I heard this. It sounded like somebody was having a cardiac arrest. And I said, what is happening? And I looked around and in the darkness and it was coming from back under the stairways, back in through where the master bedroom was. And so I ran back into that area. You know, I knew that Steve's mother was an intercessor, but I had no idea what I was going to see when I walked through that door. I had totally forgotten I was trying to help somebody who was having trouble. I ran through that door and when I ran to that door, I saw the figure of a woman down beside the bed. On her knees, oblivious to everything else, and she had her eyes closed and her fists were like this and she was going and she was travailing, she was like in labor. And I realized as I ran in, this woman is praying. And, you know, I ran in like this. I backed out of the room. I think I backed all the way back upstairs because I was so stunned and in awe and shocked by what I had just interrupted and run in on. She was birthing things in prayer. You see, like it says in the scriptures, this is what Paul did when he talks about in Galatians 4, 19, my little children of whom I travail in prayer for you until Christ be formed in you. This is what it means in Isaiah 66, verse eight, when it says as soon as Zion, who we're talking about, travails, she brings forth her children. It's the travailing. It's the longing of God's heart through us as we surrender to the effectual, fervent prayer of the Holy Spirit in a heart that's clean. And he can he can lay the foundations of the earth. He can plant the heavens. I heard one old saint say that our knees are heaven's knockers that when they go down to the ground, we began to really pray. It's like knocking on the door of heaven when our knees go down. Old Jowett, a missionary, once said, go you into all the world. That's right. But we are to go into all the world in prayer before we go into all the world in preaching, because if we don't, then as we go, our preaching will not be of any effect. In Psalm two, verse eight, it says, ask me for the nations. I will give them to you for inheritance, it says, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. It's talking about a special kind of prayer that you've already laid the groundwork on. Think about what Jesus said about the harvest. I'm talking about loved ones you have back home. I'm talking about people you work with, because wherever God really works, when he really has his way, you'll discover if he's not going to take you to your destiny in heaven, then he has a plan for you right here on earth to go back and be fruitful and in the heart of God be said as he was sent right back into your home, right back into your neighborhood, right back into your job and to be sent the same way. You see, there's three things Jesus said about the harvest. He said, look at the harvest in John, chapter four, and that is when you look at the harvest, you take your eyes off yourself, your captivity's turn. And with conviction, you learn intelligently about the harvest. You look, he says, don't say it's four months to harvest. Don't say it's not ready yet. I tell you, it's ripe to harvest. You look and you learn. He says, look at the harvest. We know about that word. He also says a word that every Baptist knows. He says in Matthew twenty eight, go ye first is lucky and then go ye into the harvest. And that's a compulsion as you're leaving. Some of you here are leaving to go to the mission field. You're you're obeying God. And as as he was sent, you're being sent. And as you go, I want to tell you, this word tonight will make your ministry effective. If you don't do what this word says, it'll be hard going. Look at the harvest field, go to the harvest field. But the middle one that Jesus said is in Matthew nine. And he says, pray ye the Lord of the harvest. The Lord looks around. He sees the multitudes and he had compassion. Compassion means with passion. It was our passion merged with the Lord's passion. And it's together having the passion of God, that longing, that heart for the world. You see, tears and power are wed together. You know, I've got two daughters and I think in a sense I can handle my three sons in a certain real sense. But Chuck can tell you when my daughters are around, I'm kind of treading water because they really have me where they want me. In fact, the other night I really got upset with my youngest daughter, who's 13, because we were in a store and she was talking to the sales clerk over there. We were trying to find her some jeans and they were kind of laughing over there. And I overheard her say to that sales clerk, which it ruined her night when I heard it. I know how to push all my dad's buttons. She was boasting that she could get whatever she wanted. I said, we're out of here. Let's go. I knew I was in trouble with her when she was just a little girl. I mean, I took my boys in to get some tennis shoes one night and she was about three and a half years old, could barely walk. And I took her by the hand. We were all going in and we're going through riches. And as we walked through the little girl's department, she looked up, there was this big, there was this beautiful pink, fluffy, bow full dress, you know, like satin. And we just walked by it. As we walked by, she just kind of followed it like this with her head. And I was pulling her and she was just kind of looking like this. We went and bought some shoes. And on the way back out, as we started to just make our way out, she looked at me, she says, Daddy, do you think that we could walk out of the store a different way? I just don't think I could stand to walk by that dress again. You know, I knew I was in big trouble. My point is this. You know, I poised myself. I'm I hope I'm smarter than she is. I don't think I am, but I may be in some areas. But when my daughters come in and they tell me they need five dollars, you know, I've decided I'm going to give it to them and I'll let them think they're pushing me around and I can pretty much control the situation. But when. I'm moving right along. You think that's hard to control when my daughter comes in and sits down in a chair in front of me and just looks at me with those eyes and tears are coursing down her cheek without a word. I'm a goner. I cannot resist it. Whatever she's ready to ask me, whatever it is, whoever I have to fight, if I had to fight Emmett Browner, I would go do it if it was mine. I'd be dead meat. I'm telling you. But if my daughter wept about it and she was like that, I would have to go out, see, because these tears are precious to God the same way you can come in with all these sterling apologetics and all the understanding of the word and string all these scriptures together and sling requests like mud on a wall. And if your eyes are dry, it probably because your heart is, too. But when you come in before God and you weep before him, they are precious to God. In fact, it says I love this verse Psalm 56, verse eight, it says. You have put our tears into your bottle, are they not all written in your book, the Jewish rabbis used to have these blue alabaster bottles with long stems and they'd catch their tears and because of that verse, they'd save them. And, you know, our tears are put in some bottle. God has books of remembrance of those who fear the Lord and call often and speak to one another about his name. I kid my wife sometimes and I say, you know, if they really do keep tears in a bottle and the angels keeping them, there's probably some my wife is a woman of prayer. And I tell you, she weeps. And I often say that if there's an angel up there with my bottle, he's up there going, tossing it around. He's got her bottle. He's just like this, some big angel carrying it around because, you see, God cares about our tears. They're like diamonds. They fall from your eyes and he keeps every one of them. It talks about in Revelation, chapter five, verse eight, that when God begins to open up the scroll, the book to bring forth the judgments in chapter six and following that there are vials, which are the prayers of the saints that are taken down. You see, our prayers are meant to outlive us. They outlive us, but they got to have heart. Whatever I do that doesn't have heart as a Christian is done in the dark. I've got to have heart in it and tears are my my heart's deceitful. I can do things because I know I should. I don't even know my own heart. He who trusts his own heart is a fool. But when I get alone before God and I allow him to drill my heart until he strikes water, until the living waters come, until tears come, then I know that it's genuine and God is doing something in me. God can't resist tears in his children and neither can a dad. It's a picture of of his heart toward us. I remember a man named Steve and Dalton, who is a judge and he's a dear man. He's a good friend of mine. And several years ago, we were doing a meeting in his church and and the Lord was blessing. But there was a hardness on the hearts of some and some were responding. But but Steve was by his own testimony later saying he was resisting it because he could feel his heart being tugged at. And he even though a sanctified man, he didn't want to commit himself because he felt he would just flood the altar with tears. But he looked down at the altar and he saw his five year old son go down and lay on the floor in the front of the church and start to weep and to pray for his daddy. And he says before he knew it, he was laying down right behind his son and weeping and God met him. You see, I believe this is what the church needs. And we as men are afraid of. We're afraid of tears. We're afraid of tears that the Lord has for us that are legitimate. We'd rather go to a meeting where everything's all happy and and and great. But yet we're told in the book of James, the practical Christianity book, chapter four, it says, draw near to God and he will draw near to you, cleanse your hands, you sinners, purify your hearts, those who are double minded. Then it says, be afflicted and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and let your joy be turned to heaviness. Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord and he will lift you up. See who can survey the wondrous cross and really see it without tears and who can go share the word about the cross without having tears if they've really seen it in reality. I'm thinking of the book Ecclesiastes. Listen to what it says in chapter seven, verse three. Sorrow is better than laughter for by the sadness of the countenance, the heart is made better. The heart of the wise man is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. Now, God wants our heart to be so intimately connected to his that we see the connection between tears and fruit. Now, I'm not just talking about tonight, tears of repentance. We need that as you contemplate the goodness of God, tears come of repentance. And I'm not just talking about tears of joy over seeing that you're forgiven as we've heard and as we need preach to us. But I'm not just talking about even tears of a burden so much for us particular item. I'm talking about tears of unity with the Lord. You see, this is the fellowship of his sufferings that you still can have. Let me tell you, God is not laughing at what's going on on Earth today. He's not panicked, but his heart is grieved. You can grieve the Holy Spirit. You can you can burden the Lord. You can do despite to him. What we need is bended knees and broken heart and brimming eyes. That's what we need. There are four things we've got to do with tears. And tonight I'm praying the Lord will move on our heart and that God will allow us to see genuine and true tears that come that are birthed at the heart and the very heart of God in the book of Acts. I want you to see. Well, first of all, first of all, in Psalm one hundred and twenty six, it says what we're supposed to do with us. So in tears, so in tears, you see, when you pray for people, the promises of God and when you go out and preach the gospel, he says, if you have precious seed, these promises and if you go forth weeping and if you go, if you sow the word with tears, you shall reap and you doubtless will come back with fruit. Paul did this. He wept before God while he warned the people he preached to. He was a tenderhearted brother in Acts chapter 20, verse thirty one. Listen to what it says that he wept even as he warned. So he sowed in tears, it says in Acts twenty thirty one, Paul says to the Ephesians, therefore, watch and remember that by the space of three years, I ceased not to warn everyone night and day with tears. He preached and he sowed the word with tears. Robert Murray McShane, who died at the age of twenty nine, one of the great preachers who's affected so many people. He was just a young man, but a friend that I read his testimony went to visit McShane's pulpit. And while he was in that church, he went up and stood behind that pulpit that Robert Murray McShane had stood behind and seen God move in. And the man giving the tour saw this preacher standing behind the pulpit and the pulpit, the man behind the pulpit said, now, is this how Brother McShane would be? And the man said, no, no, that's not how he would. If you want to be like him, OK, put your elbows on the pulpit and said, yes, OK, now, is this how he was? Not quite yet. Now you've got your elbows on the pulpit. Now put your head forward. That's right. And put your head in your hand. We we and he realized that was the great key as he would put his elbows on the pulpit and he would weep for the people to whom he was preaching. I heard another story about a young preacher who came from seminary. I said it right. Thank you, Lord, who came from seminary. He had had all these. He was a great preacher in class, but and he was very confident he was preaching without notes and he was polished and he had every homiletic hermeneutic gesticulation. Everything was perfect alliteration, everything. And this old man was sitting back there watching him like this. And this young man walked up into the pulpit to preach very, very confident. And he got up there and as he began to preach, the wheels came off and he began to forget things and he began to stammer and stutter. And finally, he was just broken and he left the pulpit and had a tear coming out of his eye and he went down kind of like this. The old man went up to him and he said, young man, if you'd walked up into the pulpit like you came down, you could have gone. You could have come down like you went up. In other words, if you'd have gone up into the pulpit like this with tears and burdened in your heart, then you could have left because joy comes in the morning. Weeping might endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. You see, we shall reap. We shall doubtless rejoice if we really learn how to weep. My question to you is, are you able to weep before God? So the word of God in tears, you ever done that? Well, secondly, though, serve the Lord with tears. And that's also in Acts chapter 20, verse 19. Paul talked about his own ministry. He said, serving the Lord with all way. First, he says, I've been with you at all seasons, serving the Lord with all humility of mind and with many tears. I serve the Lord with many tears. And that's what the Lord wants us to do. You see, we must not neglect our ministry to the Lord while we're so busy with our ministry for the Lord. You've got to minister to him. You've got to come before him and seek to fulfill what he wants. Tithes can build a sanctuary. We've got one hundred and eighty nine billion dollars worth of church property in America. That's a whole lot of bricks and mortar, all of it to honor a God who doesn't dwell in temples made with hands. You see, you can build a sanctuary with tithes, but only tears can bring it to life. If you really want to see God move in the church, get the church on her knees and so the word of God in tears and serve the Lord with tears. But thirdly, learn to supplicate for the Lord with tears. I'm thinking now of the Lord Jesus, who had no sins to confess and he had no bad attitudes to confirm to confess and overcome. But it says in Hebrews five, seven, a peak into his prayer life. It says in Hebrews five, seven, who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplication with strong crying and tears unto him who was able to save him from death, he was heard in that he feared my Lord Jesus, it says, came and looked over Jerusalem in Luke 19 and he wept over Jerusalem. Have you ever wept over Atlanta? He he served his father with tears. He supplicated with tears. I like the verse that Jerry read in Matthew 26. The Lord has used it in my own heart as I read it one day away on a retreat alone. Those verses that say in verse thirty nine and Jesus went a little further and he fell on his face and he prayed. And it's like the Holy Spirit says, are you willing to go a little further and fall on your face and pray? That suggests desperation that suggests total surrender. It suggests just falling out before God. I love that verse in Psalm six. Listen to it. It talks about a voice in prayer and it's a powerful voice. Psalm six. Listen to what it says. I love it. It says in it says in Psalm six, verse six, I am weary with my groaning all the night. Make my bed to swim. I water my couch with my tears. My eyes consumed because of grief. It waxes old because of all my enemies depart from me. All you who practice iniquity for the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping. My weeping has a voice. It was the weeping and the cry of the children of Israel that they were crying out to God that God came down to the brick pits of Egypt. And he says, I'm going to deliver these people, for I know their sorrows. Tears are eloquent. They speak volumes and they are the power of God released in us. You know, listen to Psalm to Isaiah chapter twenty two, verse four. This is an amazing verse to me. Isaiah twenty two, verse four. It says, therefore, said I look away from me. I will weep bitterly labor not to comfort me because of the spoiling of the daughter of my people. Isaiah is weeping. I don't want to be comforted because of the condition of the people of God all around me. Jeremiah said, oh, I wish my head were an ocean of waters and my eyes rivers of tears that I might weep for my people. Paul said in Romans nine, he said, listen, I would gladly go to hell for the people that are Jewish. My own kinsmen, according to the flesh, that's weeping, that's sorrow. You know, we don't know much about that kind of prayer. We don't know much about like what that lady that I talked about prevailing in childbirth. We don't know much about that. I remember touching on these at occasional points in my own life. And I'm praying now for the gift of tears. Oh, God, pour out upon me the spirit of grace and supplication. I was in South Carolina and there I was staying with a family, a man and his wife. Their children were grown. The church, the meetings were being blessed. But from the first day I was there, I discerned that this dear man, he was a sincere man, an elder in the church. He had some problems in his heart and life. You could tell it. He would hint at it. It would be there. And there was just something about the situation that was a little uncomfortable. His wife was a precious woman. And the second night of the meeting, before we went to sleep, we had been visiting. We sat down in the family room and we said, let's all have prayer together. And it was his wife and Harold and me. And as I bowed my head and started to pray, I felt that they wanted me to pray first. And so we were going to pray for our needs. And I bowed my head and I was burdened for Harold. And I bowed my head and I said, Lord, I want to pray for Harold. And it was just like somebody opened me up and poured into me that which was not of my own origin. It was like God bypassed my own emotions. I had no sense of weeping on my own. I had no sense of emotional involvement. But all of a sudden, as I said, Lord, I want to lift Harold to you. It was like water began to come out of my eyes and I began to find myself almost in an uncontrollable state. And I began to lend myself to sobbing. Water began to pour out of my eyes. My nose began to run. I think I was I had water coming out of my mouth. I was totally unable to control myself. I might have even had water coming out my ears because I'll tell you, I was and I tried. I remember thinking these people are going to think I'm crazy. Oh, God, I got to get a grip here. And the more I tried to get a grip, the more I lost it. And soon I was just weeping and sobbing and I'd say, Lord, Harold, and I would just weep and sob. And this went on for 10 or 12 minutes. And the more I tried to control it, the more it was just getting away from me. Finally, finally, what seemed like an eternity, I managed to finally say, you'll have to excuse me. I don't understand what's going on here. And Harold quickly said, I know what's happening here. And we quickly went to bed the next day. Harold confessed to the church that he'd been delivered from 30 years of bondage during that time of prayer. The Lord heard the voice of my weeping and I said, Lord, why couldn't I pray and have this happen? He says, you aren't smart enough to pray for him the way he needed to be prayed. You didn't have enough heart for this man. And so what I did was I borrowed your emotions. I borrowed your sensibilities. And I prayed for that man right there in his presence, right before his very heart. And what you experienced was what I want to do through you as you learn to supplicate with tears. You come before the Lord and you don't just sow the word in tears and you don't just you don't just serve the Lord with tears, but you learn to supplicate before God as you as you lend yourself to him. And the Lord Jesus no longer I, but Christ eloquently steps in and prays for those needs according to the very mind of God, the comforter who has come will teach us and lead us into all truth. And he will supplicate for us. Unless you have that kind of praying, you can't write what David wrote here in Psalm 35 in verse 11. He says, false witnesses rose up. They laid to my charge things that I didn't even know about. They rewarded me evil for good to the spoiling of my own soul. What are you going to do about that when people lie about you and treat you terribly? Well, you're going to just keep quiet about it, right? No, he says. But as for me, when they got sick, my clothing was sackcloth and I humbled my soul with fasting and my prayer. And it means with weeping returned to my own bosom. I behaved myself as though this one was my friend or my brother. And I bowed down heavily as one that mourns for his mother. He was in such a state of harmony with the heart of God that when the one who is after him is enemy the most, he was able to go with weeping and fasting and mourning and take the heart of God and pray for that person as if it was his sick mother or brother or close friend. I'm telling you, until the church recovers this supplication with tears, until we learn to do that, we'll never really have the heart of God in prayer. Listen to what David wrote in Psalm 119, verse 136. He talks about weeping and he talks about the reason for it. He says, rivers of water run down my eyes because they're not keeping your law, Lord. He looked around and he saw the church and others and they weren't walking in the whole counsel of God and it broke him to pieces. So you have to have fellowship with God to have that kind of burden. So the word in tears, serve the Lord with tears, supplicate before him with tears and finally seek the Lord with tears, seek him. It's time to seek the Lord until he comes and rains righteousness on us. Jerry and I were talking tonight on the way over here. And again, I think it was Tozer who said that if you look at the light, the sun, when it's shining brightly and your eyes don't water, you're in danger of going blind. And for the church who has good preaching and who knows the word of God and God has revealed the light to you, tearless eyes will soon go blind. We need tears to lubricate our vision and to make it full of heart and passion. And this is meant to put us in a state of panic tonight, you might say. I think the church needs to become desperate and take the burden of the Lord. We don't have this in our heart. We are pretty good in our own eyes. In Joel chapter two, when the people of God are under oppression, there are 10 commandments of revival. That's what they were doing in the upper room. They were there in that upper room. They were fulfilling those conditions of Joel for genuine outpouring of the Holy Spirit, 10 of them. And then that which is prophesied by the prophet Joel happened as he poured out his spirit on those people waiting for 10 days in the upper room. And one of the things it says, the ninth and 10th condition, it says, let the priests, the ministers of the Lord and every one of you are kings and priests and ministers of the Lord. If you're born again, let the kings and the priests and the ministers of the Lord weep between the porch and the altar, the porch and the alters, the place between where the people stand and where God is. Let them come and let them weep right in the middle intercession and let them say, spare your people, O Lord, and don't give what is your heritage to a reproach. So the heathen would rule over your people. Why should they say in the world, in Newsweek and all these other places, where is their God? The word for weep is a command. It's a strong word that means to wail to the point of wetting the altar with tears. You see, there's never going to happen revival in any church or in any home or in any nation where the church true believers don't first become desperate. You have to sow in tears. You have to sow God's promises in tears. And when we get before him and we meditate on his goodness, like we heard tonight and it becomes real to you, tears will come. A friend of mine, a godly man, heard a message on the blood covenant that I made years ago. And he heard it. He says, like some of you tonight said, what a wonderful message. And you were right. It was. But my friend, he says, you know, I might have missed something. And he listened to it again. And then Chip said, I listened to it again. And he says, I listened to it again. And then as I went through it on the fourth time, this hour long message, it's as if my inward man began to melt and something happened and my eyes flooded with tears and I began to weep in the presence of God. God wants to bring you into the gift of tears. He wants to bring you into the place to where you have the heart of God. He wants us to share his heart and to walk with him in his sufferings. A lot of people want to share his power, but they don't want his pain and this pain. In fact, it says in Ecclesiastes 118, with much wisdom is much sorrow and knowledge increases suffering. The more you know of God, the greater you share in the sufferings of God. We want to share and know his goodness, but not give ourselves to his grief that he has. And we don't want to agonize for souls, but God wants us to agonize for the things that break his heart. It's as if the enemy wants to keep us from laying hold of this message. This thing can be laid hold of by faith. You can say to the Lord, Father, I don't know much about this supernatural tears, this thing that comes where the heart is furrowed by the spirit of God, but I'm asking you tonight to pour out on me the spirit of grace and supplication. I want to rejoice with you and in your sufferings. I want to enjoy the fellowship of your sufferings, Paul said, as sorrowful, but always rejoicing. There's a joy when you know you're walking with God. God is mindful of our tears. Let me ask you tonight, when was the last time you wept before God? When God broke your heart, I mean, really broke your heart. You know, that's one of his criteria for leadership. When he was going to judge his own people in the book of Ezekiel, chapter nine, he told a man with an ink horn, I think it's a pre-incarnate manifestation of Christ. But this man went to the altar where the blood was shed in vision form to him and he got an ink horn and filled it with blood. I believe it was blood. It's an ink horn. Whatever it was, was in this ink horn on his side. And he says to the angels, go through the streets of Jerusalem and you find all of those people that weep and sigh for the abominations that are being done in the people of God's presence and in their relationships. Go through and find the people with a broken and a contrite heart, the one who have tears and take that ink horn and put a mark in the Hebrew letter is for the word cross. Put a mark on their forehead and begin at the very ancients of God, at the elders in the church of Jesus, at the elders at my sanctuary, the very holy ones. You start there. If you find them sympathetic of heart and broken in spirit over the things that break God's heart, mark them with that cross on their forehead. And then after you're through, go through and utterly slay. Do not spare anyone who doesn't have that mark on their head. What if God did that today to us, go through and mark out the people in America who are truly in heart sympathy with God, who are burdened over the things that burden the heart of God, who have a genuine hatred of the evil that's going on and the plagues of the church who weep and sigh and shed tears over it before the Lord and then take his truth to the world, go through and mark those and everybody else when judgment comes, let them just die and go to heaven. Brothers, the situation in our families and in our churches and in our nation, the deplorable situation calls for our tears. And you know what? They're not in me and not in you. But my question is, are you willing to ask God to break your heart and to let him pour out into you supernaturally the burden of the Lord like for Harold or like that woman in prayer where you can truly weep with groanings that cannot be uttered, with sighs without any saying, with silence that's encyclopedic as tears course for the burdening things of God? Well, my invitation to you tonight is to say, Lord, I want to get before you and let you drill on my heart until you strike water and let the tears flow without interruption. Lord, we've so much, but we're bringing in little. We do bring what we bring home to put it in a bag that's full of holes, said the minor prophet. And the Lord would say to us, try tears, try getting your heart truly involved. You heard a message tonight on the blood covenant. And some of you in this room know that you are on the fringe of that. You've learned about the Lord and you need to nail it down tonight and say, Lord, I want to drink deeply of the cup of your precious blood. I want to eat your flesh. I want to drink your blood. I want you to come and seal me forever and pour into me the very nature and heart of God. I want to act on what I've already heard. I want to know you and your awesome majesty and walk in the fear of the Lord all the day and hate the things you hate and love the people and the things you love. And I want to be holy because you are holy and I want to live looking unto Jesus and captive to the things of your mind, every thought captive to who you are and my ultimate destiny in you. I want to be a holy man of God. I want to belong to you. I want to weep over sin and I want to wait for others and I want to have the spirit's heartbeat and the burden of the Lord. You know, when you'll know you have that. When tears come. The thing in the scripture that is so consistent is that God knows that it's genuine when he hears the voice of our weeping. And so my question to us as men tonight, are you man enough to weep before God? I'm not looking to generate some macho. I'll do it for you, Lord. But you see, I tell brothers when they say, I just can't seem to cry. I say it takes a real noble brother to get before God and let him break you until you're weak enough, which is really strength in the kingdom to let God bring tears to your eyes, weep over the fact that you don't weep, weep over the fact that what's happening to our children, but come before the Lord and let tears run down. Oh, that my eyes were rivers in my head were an ocean of waters that I might weep before the Lord day and night for the people of God, for the things of our situation of our day. One last scripture, and then I'm going to ask you to act on what you've heard all this day in Lamentations. Just listen. Chapter two, verse 18 and 19. It says their heart cried unto the Lord, let tears run down like a river day and night, give yourself no rest, don't let the apple of your eye cease your eyes to be watering. Then it says, arise and cry out in the night. It means to wail out in the night in the beginning of the watches, pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lift up your hands toward him for the life of your young children that thank for hunger in the top of every street. Lift up your hands. Oh, God, let the lifting of my hands be like incense. And then my teardrops before your bottle, put them in your vial.