Acid Test Series 8 of 8 - the Heart Cry of Tears — Al Whittinghill

Well, it's a privilege to be here with so many of you that I would consider friends and also to Just be in the presence of a band of people whose hearts the Lord has touched. It's like coming home almost everybody you meet.

You know, God's been dealing with in the same areas and you start off at a good level. So it's a great thing to be with you and I'm deeply Really humbled to be up here this morning. Let's just pray together father as we bow in your presence and we look to your word.

I would ask that your Heart would have freedom with our heart to unite our hearts. To fear your name and to love you and to trust you and in the manners you want to speak to us. We long together that your will be done as we prayed last night.

Right here beginning in the chambers of our spirit right here today in Jesus name. Amen. Well, I was excited last night because I feel that in the light of what's coming after this The Lord has an order in these messages.

Sowing in Tears and the Turned Captivity

I wish you'd turn in your Bible to Psalm 126 and I want to read one of the songs of ascent. That's on the way up into the temple as they would pray. They would read this from one of the steps. Let me read Psalm 126.

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 was singing. Then said they among the heathen the Lord has done great things for them.

The Lord has done great things for us. Where we're glad turn again our captivity. Oh Lord as the streams in the south for they that so in tears shall reap in joy and He that goes forth and weeps Bearing precious seed shall without a doubt come again with rejoicing bringing his sheaves With him turn the captivity of Zion.

Well once General Booth was recipient of a letter Samuel Logan Bringle tells of this they had sent a team of those early Salvation Army workers into one of the cities in the north Eastern part of the u .s.

They knew how to go into the cities and to reach the Unreachable in the deepest part of the city. They'd done it in so many cities. And so they had this massive campaign plan. They'd prayed they'd Organized they'd done everything they knew how to do and They were seeing no fruit none at all.

And so after some weeks of frustration They wrote the general general Booth founder of Salvation Army a letter. Explaining the situation the general went to pray and wrote back a letter. They had two words in it and they opened it and here were the words.

It said try tears and They realized that in their professional approach to things and knowing how to bring Awakening to an area that they had left off the very heart of God and so they went to their knees and they began to pray and the Lord broke their heart afresh and He met them in a great move of his so here in this psalm You see in verse 1 when the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion.

The people of God are in captivity. It doesn't say what they're in captive to captivity to but we know that it's not right for the people of God to be in Bondage to anything and the psalmist then says that when when the captivity is turned that the nation's notice and they say Wow, the Lord has done great things for them and then he acknowledges you have done great things for us and we're glad but turn Our captivity again like that Lord like the streams in the south.

Now I want you to look at verse 4 for just a moment because he says turn our captivity. Oh Lord as the streams in the south that word streams is the word torrents and the word south. It refers to the harsh desert just south of Jerusalem.

If you've ever been to Israel down to Masada, that's where it's talking about that area. I was standing on the top of Mount of Masada and my the guide showed me one of those wadis. It's an abandoned bed which dries a bone and he said now that is what it's talking about.

I'd ask him about this song. He had been standing there before and seen Rivers of water flood that empty riverbed that that empty waterbed as it has rained in Jerusalem. It comes suddenly and so here we're seeing this picture of here's a dry riverbed.

It's like a wilderness and Suddenly there's torrents of water that cannot be contained or explained by anything. So it's the this the streams of God's awakening that come and when our captivity is turned.

But as long as we're in captivity, there's no water at all. See that word suddenly is a revival word as you're in the wilderness and your life is dried out and you know Everything you think you're supposed to know suddenly as the showers begin to fall when the poor and needy cry out for water and there is none then there's a Overwhelming surge of his presence that comes and it sweeps everything before it all through the scripture.

It refers to the coming of water like the rain and the latter rain and that's the picture here. But in verse 5 I think is the key to this song to having the captivity turn. Verse 5 and 6. It says those who sow in tears Shall reap in joy and the figure that suggested to my mind is here are a people in the in a private place.

They're down before the Lord and they're sowing the Word of God Before him in prayer in tears and they're there praying and God is breaking their hearts and as they're in prayer before him. They then get up and leave the prayer closet with the precious seed that God has given to them and they're still Weeping and as they go they're preaching this word and sowing this word and God says without a doubt They will come back with fruit you see because it's the heart that makes it fruitful.

Tears as the Heart Cry of Prayer

Now I want to talk about tears the heart cry of tears and I want to ask you a question. Have you wondered where the tears are in? Our gatherings in the church's gatherings. Where are the tears you see tears here?

It's a pouring out of soul. It is a you might say it's liquid prayer. It's it's love without language. No matter what country you go to no matter what culture you're in No matter what race you're with tears say the same thing.

They're eloquent. They speak when language cannot and they show that the heart is involved. Here is Matlock. Interviewing the person on the witness stand and they're carrying off his his questionings with perfect Logic and all of a sudden Matlock.

This is where my wife likes Matlock when he when he asked this question and it penetrates the objection and Suddenly the witness his jaw begins to tremble and his eyes fill up and tears run down his cheeks and you say now we've got It because tears show the moment of reality has come or the preacher that stands up and has a message and it's polished.

Gesticulation homiletics hermeneutics perfect, but it's dry as a bone. But then all of a sudden his voice breaks and he begins to have tear coming down his cheeks and suddenly the deacon wakes up because suddenly you see they see the heart is Involved and people know that when you when you've seen water come out the eyes that people you're talking to the real person.

Well, I believe I would like to make this statement about tears if our eyes are dry. It's because our hearts are parched. It's because our Captivity has not been turned and God wants to turn our captivity.

I don't believe the church has a message for the heart of the world. Until the Lord has the heart of the church and when the Lord has the heart of the church. Then you will see it authenticated with heartfelt tears coming forth you see so here's the contrast.

Here's the contrast here. Well first let me say Jesus said in John 7 that he that believeth on me as the scriptures say. Out of his innermost being shall come rivers of living water now. I used to think that was verbal.

I used to think that was preaching and I'm sure that's part of it. But if you trace that term rivers of water through the scriptures you will find that more often than not. It refers to rivers of water from the eye.

Rivers of water run down my cheeks because Lord they've made void your law says David in the Psalms. Jeremiah said oh that my head were a fountain in my eyes rivers of tears that I might weep for the slain of the daughter Of my of my father and so it's it's waters coming out of our eyes.

The book of Lamentations Is about tears that that people should weep and cry out for the children and for the for the captivity people that are around. But you see the reason you don't see more tears.

I believe is inherent in verse 1 captivity. Captivity here the people of God are in bondage and without freedom something controlling them that is holding them in check. Now there was another man in the oldest book in the Bible Job who was in captivity.

The whole book and the last part of the book you read these words the Lord turned the captivity of Job when? When he prayed for his friends, you see what was Job captive to till the end of the book. I mean God says three times Job was the best man on earth.

He feared God he hated evil and he was an awesome man miles down the road from from almost any of us I'm sure. But he was captive. What was he captive to. And I believe the Lord Is trying to say to us.

Job was captive to his own ideas of what it meant to be righteous. Of what it meant to be holy of what it meant to serve the Lord and he was so Occupied with his own growth and his own deliverance and his own blessing that he didn't have time for others but when he took his eyes off of himself because he saw God and Diminished himself repented in sackcloth and ashes then he could understand his friends and he prayed and God turned his captivity.

He was self-absorbed. He was unbroken and he was therefore Captive to his own ideas a dry barren heart you might say. But when he was taken to that cross in his mind and saw the Lord he saw himself. He was broken and waters flowed and he wept and he was he.

We see the end of Job and count him merciful. So you see I can't weep for others if all I'm thinking about is my own blessing and my own prosperity and my own Ministry and and how God can bless me. We've got to be decentralized.

That's why I got excited about last night because you see that's the place of decentralization. It's the cross when we come to the cross and we are dethroned. We are decentralized and God gets our mind off of our own puny life.

You see the reason why this kind of prayer is so unattractive to us the prayer of tears. It's because we've tried to enter the celestial realm of this kind of intercession in the power and strength and the sincerity of the old man.

We put him up in religious knowledge and religious rags and we come in. It's just religious flesh like Job's was for so many of us the old man cannot wield the kind of prayer We're talking about as a weapon.

It is mighty through God to the tearing down of strongholds and only God Can give you this and give me this. Now the old man can imitate it. But he can never really lay hold of it and he can pretend and he can gather in an empty church gatherings that pray and make tending tinkling symbols but as we become in conscious union as we wait before the Lord and Conscious union takes place then our praying is transformed as we come to the cross and pass the verdict of the cross on Our own thoughts and our own words.

We are set free but in captivity. Our spirit is bound up and we cannot be free to to enter into the emotions of prayer into the heart cry of Prayer for the things that God puts there in our heart. So the monster of selfishness that was in Job.

That's in me and in you must be dealt with and must be exposed. Christ cannot possess us or cause us to have rivers of water coming out of our eyes as he promised. To flow from hearts until we truly are broken and this is brokenness in prayer.

Brokenness in prayer that comes as the Lord turns the captivity of Zion, you know. We read a lot about the death and the burial and the resurrection and we preach this that we're identified with the Lord in that.

But you know, we haven't taken it far enough. Death burial resurrection. Ascension. Yes ascended with Christ seated with him in the heavenlies, but the last is intercession. We've got to identify with him in his current Intercessions and seldom do we ever hear this that that is just as much as the crucifixion.

Crucified with Christ buried with Christ raised with Christ and now joined with him in heavenly intercession. You see the Holy Ghost is not satisfied with the status quo of the prayers of the church. He wants to set our hearts free.

So we're not captive and so we're really walking in what he has to embrace the cross. So God responds to prayer when there's a true heart cry for revival when our captivity has been turned and the whole being Is involved, you know.

Paul, Moses, and the Burden of Intercession

This is the burden that Paul had in Romans this kind of heart when he says I speak the truth. And I lie not the Holy Ghost bearing me witness that I have continual sorrow in my heart and heaviness. For my kinsmen according to the flesh.

I could wish that I myself were accursed Sent to hell if God would save my kindred my countrymen. This is the kind of burden that Moses had when he went before God and said Lord if you don't say these people block me Out of your book, but you see hot tears don't come from cold hearts and Cold heart is a captive heart.

Heart that can't enter into this realm and I'm not up here as one saying that I have friends I'm simply saying when the Lord turns the captivity of Zion. Then then it happens and then we can see God opening the heavens and cloudbursts waters fetched from the clouds and dry River gullies that once were full of water filled again with water as soon as Zion prevails.

She brings forth her children. Labor pains. That's what Paul made in Galatians 4 when he says my little children of whom I travail in prayer Again and again for you until Christ is formed in you this prevailing this this entering into this deep agonizing Groanings that cannot be uttered.

I remember when I was in seminary I'd asked the Lord teach me to pray Lord and there was this couple in our church. Helen was her name and the husband's was Charles and he taught at the seminary voice marvelous voice.

I was roommates with their son one of four boys and he was six feet nine. He was a judge in the city of Fort Worth a great man of God and when when spring break Christmas came I would often go to their house and spend the time with them.

Helen was a woman of prayer. I'll tell you whenever you looked at those big blue eyes. You knew she knew something that you didn't know you met people like that. It's like on II you look at her you say that woman knows something and you see I I always said Lord Teach me something through her.

Well, I knew that she was a woman of prayer and knew about this people would come to her from all over and ask for prayer. They were Mr. Well Charles was out of town and I was over spending the night.

It was about two o 'clock in the morning. The guys all of us had been upstairs having a great fellowship. Helen was downstairs alone. And as I went down about two o 'clock in the morning downstairs to get some water I heard this animal like noise.

It sounded like a heart attack of someone having some kind of cardiac arrest or something. And so I began to run toward the noise in the darkness. I'd come down the stairs running back toward the noise underneath the stairs and I ran into this open dimly lighted room and there Down beside the bed was not someone having a heart attack.

But a woman at two o 'clock in the morning down beside the bed with an open Bible and her hands were clasped in front of her. And rolling around on the floor praying with groanings that cannot be uttered.

I ran in and I just stopped like this. I Felt like I'd walked in on a most intimate moment. I remember backing out of the room like this. I think I backed all the way back upstairs because I was so shocked and felt like I'd invaded something so holy and I said Then Lord, I don't know much about that kind of burden.

I don't know much about that kind of prayer. You see so in tears pour your hearts out before him. The early church had a motto that was repeated and often said no coming to heaven without tears. Did you know that for three centuries they said that no coming to heaven without tears.

Well, there's a great secret in Romans you know Romans chapter 8 has more about the Spirit of God than any other chapter in the New Testament and it has the Criteria and the demarcations of a believer.

It talks about being led of the Spirit. I mean over 20 times and it culminates and goes up. But the highest Mark is when it goes and talks about the Spirit himself makes groanings within us. He helps our weakness with groanings that cannot be uttered talking about prayer the highest point.

There are three groanings in that chapter groanings as if to educate us what God is trying to say this in those first verses like in verse 22 of chapter 8 when all Creation is groaning. It says the whole creation groans now waiting for the Manifestation of you and me when God gets finished with us and and all of the heavens are completed heaven.

Creation is waiting for the release from the bondage of corruption the result of the fall. Then it takes you to a step higher of groaning. It says that we ourselves also groan as Paul says in 2nd Corinthians that we groan within ourselves.

Because we have the first fruits of the Holy Spirit and we long for revival. When we long for holiness when we long for Diligence that that sometimes is out of reach the spirit groans for us to be completed and be clothed upon.

With the finality of of all that God has. So there's a groaning. If you're not groaning then you backslidden. Because God wants us groaning and yearning and stretching and pressing toward that completion of what he has.

But then it goes on and says that not only is creation groaning to be free from the bondage of corruption. But the Christian is groaning to be freed from the body of carnality. But the Spirit of God the Comforter within us is groaning to be free from the binding of captivity.

We bind him up and we limit him to sterile prayers and lists and things that we've Intellectually figured out that he wants to do and he needs to do. You see and we've never gone far enough. I'll tell you I don't have time to go into the lists of scriptural releases when people got to the point of prayer, but power as we talked about last night and tears are eternally wed in Scripture.

If you go to Jerusalem, you'll see at Fortress Antonio what they call tear bottles. The rabbis used to catch their tears in bottles that that they would keep and it goes to Psalm 56 verse 8 My tears are in your bottle.

Are they not all written in your book. In the book of Revelation God keeps vials of prayer. I don't think it's gas. It may be liquid prayer. I don't know but whatever it is in those vials I believe that God you see prayers not just measured by time.

It's measured by intensity. When we come to a point of true release who can survey the wondrous cross like last night really without tears. Who can who who can give out the word of the cross. Without real tears if they understand who can look at the lost and what's going on today without tears.

Who can know God's heart without tears. Because you see the situation as we have it today calls for a contribution of tears. Tears make all the difference. I mean you look this is not hidden in the scriptures, but we read right over it.

I mean it was when the children of Israel were in when they groaned. It says and they sighed and they cried out that God came and he heard and he says I know their sorrows. And I'm going to deliver them.

But the word groaned there is very significant as will that word groaned is the same word. Which is used when it says well. When it says the Spirit of God helps our infirmity that word help is only used one other time in the New Testament.

And it's used when when Martha strangely enough comes to Jesus and says master My sister has left me to serve alone bid her that she helped me. In other words get her hands dirty get involved. And it has a sense of whom you're carrying something really heavy and you're about to drop it and I come over and say let Me help you before you collapse.

The Spirit of God helps me in my weakness and he comes like that and runs to the aid to with groanings the word is the word used only once in Stephen's sermon in Acts chapter 7 when he quotes the groanings of these children of Israel as they're groaning to be freed out from bondage.

That same groaning. When Hannah wept God heard and gave her a prophet as a son when Isaiah He he saw Hezekiah Weeping and God said I have seen your tears and he turned his death into life. Nehemiah was weeping and his tears were noticed by the king swollen eyes and God used his tears to deliver the people of God and To build and to build the walls over and over a broken and contrite heart he will not despise.

Verily Lord you have heard the sound of my weeping and. So our captivity must be turned. I only have a little time left, but I want to say the Bible says we're to sow in tears. That's the first so the Word of God in tears.

Sowing and Serving With Tears

Remember the Apostle Paul when he came and he says in Acts chapter 20 He says I have preached to you with many tears. I've been with you day and night for the over three years and I've been preaching to you with tears.

Acts 20 31. In in act in 2nd Corinthians chapter 2 verse 4 He says I have written to you with many many tears. So he spoke the Word of God with tears and he wrote the Word of God with tears and he said to Timothy I'm mindful of your tears.

The Apostle Paul. He he wouldn't preach Without tears. So if we sow in tears in the prayer closet. Then God gives us what he wants and we go out with a broken heart. And then we see the fruit of those promises that we planted in faith.

This is message preparation. Not just laying out an outline. But getting our hearts and minds before God until we can sow the Word of God in tears. Oh, I wish I had three hours to talk about this. But not only sow the Word of God with tears, but serve the Lord with tears the Bible talks about in Acts 20 verse 19.

It says Paul says I have served the Lord with many tears. What does this mean? Well, I don't think I know fully. I really don't but I'm sure that it means part of this. You know, they're 18 words in the Hebrew language for weight.

Talking about waiting upon the Lord. 18 different words. We only have one in English so we think it means just tearing a long time but one of them means to get in God's presence with utter grief and and With an inward wail and God meets you like what we're talking about only one of the 18.

There are four major words that are used but this to serve the Lord with tears is to minister to him and to suffer. Along with him, you know. If you've had something terrible happen in your life and someone comes to you and sits down and just cries with you.

Does that minister to you? Well, I believe in the same sense when we get with the Lord and we wait upon him and we weep with our heavenly Father's heart we come alongside and we enter into his burdens then we share his heart.

We co-labor together with him. It says in the New Testament co-laborers with God. We we want his power, but we don't want his pain fellowship of his sufferings plural plural you see and so Jesus was always as sorrowful but yet always rejoicing and so that's what God has for us.

Those early disciples rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer for his name's sake. How how have we lost this this beautiful waiting with the Lord's presence on us where we can enter into his heart?

Burdens and serve the Lord with tears you see I Think in our ministry for the Lord. We must not neglect our ministry to the Lord ministering to him him. Just belonging to him and entering into his heart sharing.

So the Word of God with tears. Serve the Lord with tears. But the one that we're majoring on today supplicate Before the Lord with tears pour out your soul before him you see before the Spirit of God is poured out on.

By God the soul must be poured out by the church. We've got to pour our souls out before him before he'll ever pour the Spirit out on us. It's got to be real. I remember Looking in the scriptures and being shocked at some of the words that are used there that we have forgotten there's words like pimp us, which means a broken and contrite heart in the Greek language a a a Flowing from the heart and soul a sympathy with God cut to the heart brokenhearted.

There's words like Solicitude when was the last time you heard that word solicitude, but it means to feel along with the Lord. Have we done this in prayer? I mean in our gathering here as we get before the Lord have we taken time to really listen to him and say Lord.

We're available. We're available to you unable to speak sometimes only groaning. See, this is the dimension of prayer heart crying for revival. I remember I was in Sumter, South Carolina once and when God really began to teach me about this I was spending the night with a Lovely couple an elder in the Presbyterian Church and his wife and preaching in his church that night in the next couple of nights.

We met and talked that day and this was a dear man. But he's one of those dear man that you've meet you meet and you know, something is wrong. You've met people like that. There's just something holding them back on the inside.

And so I began to pray for Harold. I said Lord show me how to pray for Harold. I don't know how to pray for him. There's something there amiss. I had no clue that night. We went to the church had a wonderful meeting and came back and before we went to the bed.

That night I said, why don't we have prayer together? So Harold and Shirley and I Set down in their den and began to hold hands like we did last night. We were going to pray and right in the middle of our time of prayer I just opened my mouth and I said Lord, I want to lift up Harold to you and without any emotions.

Without any real feeling of entering into my own human feelings for Harold. It was as if just sorrow invaded my being and as I was holding their hands I began my voice began to break and I thought to myself what's happening here.

I said Lord, I want to lift up Harold to you and my voice began to waver my eyes begin to water and the more I tried to compose myself. Here's this visiting preacher whining and crying in prayer and they said I said Lord, what do they think.

Lord? Didn't care what they thought and Suddenly the more I tried to gain composure of myself. All I could say was Harold. Harold and my eyes began to water. Water was just streaking down my cheeks. Water was coming out my nose water was coming out my mouth and dripping off my chin.

Humiliated I couldn't let go with my hands because they were holding on to my hands. Snorting trying to all I could do was saying Lord Harold. Harold and after and this went on for 10 minutes. I was absolutely Finally all I could do was say you'll have to excuse me.

I just don't know what's happening. Just like that Harold said I know what's happening. We went to bed the next morning. It was a prayer meeting and Harold stood up in that prayer meeting. He says I want to thank God for setting me free last night at a prayer meeting for 30 years of bondage.

And I was in complete awe and I went off and got along with the Lord. I said Lord what in the world are you trying to teach me? What's going on? He said Al you you said you want to know how to pray for Harold, but you don't love Harold like I love him.

I Love him and you don't know Harold like I know him. How can you pray for Harold? You said you want to learn how to pray for her and I simply took you at your word. I borrowed your emotions. I borrowed your heart.

I borrowed your words and I prayed for Harold through you. You entered into a dimension of prayer, you know very little about the Spirit of God made intercession through you with groanings. You could never put into human words too great too awesome and you couldn't really do it and I borrowed your faculties and Oh By the way out.

The father always hears my prayers. I said Lord Is this is this a possibility for us? Can we move into this and then the Lord began to show me like a path for us of a path for us in the book Of Colossians when it says that word always Laboring for you fervently in prayers that word laboring is the word agon.

It's the same word used for the Lord Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane He being in an agonia. It's the word used for the Greek Marathon of 26 miles. It's the same word that Paul used when he says in Romans 15.

He says listen, I want you to strive together with me in your prayers to agonize together. But where's the agony? Where's the agony in we're like Job here I'm just telling you what God is saying to us is to get beyond where we are in prayer to wait before him until our Hearts break until we are ushered into that cosmic realm.

Let me tell you it'll make our prayers cosmic in scope. And we'll see something amazing happening. This is a gift From God and it doesn't just happen unless we ask in Galatians chapter 4 verse 6. It says because you are sons God has sent the spirit of his son into your hearts crying Abba father.

I'd always read that and thought it was this little Abba father, you know, that's how we preach it sometimes. But that word Abba father crying that word crying is crazy. It's the same exact word That's used of the gathering demonic Who cried out in the gospel of Mark crying out as he ran?

And so what that verse is saying is that as we get before God the spirit of the mature son is sent into our heart. We cry out That cannot be uttered it's it's a languishing and Burdening of heart no longer I but Christ in prayer.

We talked about no longer I but Christ in our daily life. But when was the last time you really thought about no longer I but Christ in prayer. I hope this doesn't seem presumptuous me bringing this word because I do not know this dimension.

Please don't think I'm arrived up here I'm just saying I want to learn this. I want to learn this to answer the cry. That's been in my heart for years the revival the Lord. You look through history and you see in these great revival instances that we study.

It is when tears came to the church and brokenheartedness that God rendered the heavens when they rendered their hearts and they wept Before him you see this is this is not just crying repentance. This is not just crying before the Lord for joy.

This is far beyond that. Most people never weep in real repentance praise God when they do or they don't weep for joy but this is beyond that this is entering into the fellowship of his sufferings and the Communion with the Holy Spirit praying with the Spirit.

What is this? It's when I make myself and my faculties available to the Holy Spirit. I become like a riverbed a wadi and God pours out his spirit and Suddenly through this dried-out person there comes a torrential Flow of his presence and we begin to see with his eyes and feel with his heart and long with his Desires and his breath becomes our breath.

This is never worked up by man. It is wrought in by God. You can't work this up. I can wait a hundred hours before God and it'll never happen. This is the gift of tears and you have to ask for it. I'll tell you well, I guess you always have to ask for it.

God knows when we need it, but I've seen men. I've seen strong tough guys that would never cry for any reason and they've said Lord. I agree with this. I ask you for the gift of tears. I remember one of my friends Brian.

He's a godly man, but he had his nose broken about seven times playing football. He is a tough guy. He would never cry for anything as other than the Lord, but he hadn't been crying in prayer. He said Lord, I want the gift of tears a week later.