What To Do In A Dark Season 5/30/2021
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1 “Sing, O barren, You who have not borne! Break forth into singing, and cry aloud, You who have not labored with child! For more are the children of the desolate Than the children of the married woman,” says the Lord.
To be barren was a curse. Those who were barren were ashamed. It was a painful thing to the woman who was barren. Even now, though people are more understanding about a woman or man who cannot produce a child, it is for the person who suffers infertility a very painful thing.
It is painful to have a deep desire that goes unfulfilled.
To be barren represents an absence of producing, synonymous with being empty. A season of emptiness. To have nothing being brought forth, and no hope of producing for the future.
Such is suffering sometimes, a season in which you wonder if anything will come of it. We are all willing to suffer if we know there is something being gained that we value. When it feels empty and vain, that’s a different kind of suffering. There is no hope in that kind of suffering. Empty seasons without hope of something greater coming.
Barren Seasons
Barren Seasons
Sarah’s barrenness caused her to surrender the hope of ever having a child, and caused her to ask “Have you considered my handmaid Hagar?”
Rachel's barrenness caused her to pray til God could no longer ignore her affliction.
Hannah - So heavy was her suffering that it could be seen by everyone. She wore the emptiness of her life on her face. Her husband could see it and tried to compensate with gifts. The priest could see and hear it when she went to the temple.
Some of us today know what it is like to be in a barren, empty season of life, when your face betrays you, it possesses your prayers, and presses you to surrender any hope.
You might be in one of those seasons of life now. It might seem strange for our text in Isaiah to say.
1 “Sing, O barren, You who have not borne! Break forth into singing, and cry aloud, You who have not labored with child! For more are the children of the desolate Than the children of the married woman,” says the Lord.
The key to understanding the verse is found in this statement “For more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married woman”.
Who are the “children of the desolate” and who are the “children of the married woman”?
For a long season before the church was born, God’s chosen people had few children. That is the married woman, and few were her members. Few were her sons and daughters. Her feast days and celebrations were often attended by a multitude of hypocrites. Her courts were filled formalist, keeping tradition. But the genuine children were only a few.
Then Jesus came, John 1:11 tell us that.
11 He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.
It is true what Isaiah said that He came as a root out of dry ground.
Isaiah 53:2 (NKJV)
2 For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him.
The married woman had few children, it was dry ground.
So Jesus came, and after all of the ministering that He did. After all the miracles. After all the messages that He taught. After three and a half years of ministry, when He ministered to thousands. Speaking at least at times to more than five thousand.
After all of that there were only a few that remained faithful to Him.
The children of the married wife were very very few.
What a dark night it was when Judas betrayed Him for thirty pieces of silver. What a dark time it was when all the disciples forsook Him and fled.
Then the one who was supposed to be closest to Him said “I don’t know Him.”
When given the chance to free Him, the people He had ministered to said away with Him, give us Barabbas. A murderer. Pilate said what should I do with the one called Christ? They said crucify Him.
So the children of the married wife were so very very few when they hung the Lord of glory on the cross at Calvary that day. When they lifted Him up between two thieves where was Zion, where were the people who had such a rich history, where were His followers, where were the sons and daughters of the married woman?
Only a few gathered where He hung on a shameful tree.
He cried out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” It was a dark night, a dark season. It seemed as though the light had gone out, the candle of hope had been snuffed out. Who would have believed on that dark night that in just a few days, one month and ten days, there would be a visitation of the presence of the Lord such as the world had never seen before!
There was coming a time of refreshing from the presence of the Lord that could hardly be understood when talked about by the prophets. It started in an upper room where 120 were filled with the Holy Spirit.
Some of those who were gathered together in Jerusalem at that feast day of Pentecost ask what is this? Some said these people are drunk.
Peter said no we aren’t drunk. This is the fulfilling of the saying by the prophet Joel.
28 “And it shall come to pass afterward That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your old men shall dream dreams, Your young men shall see visions.
29 And also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.
They said what shell we do?
37 Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?”
38 Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
That day 3,000 more were filled with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. They experienced the new birth that Jesus spoke of in John 3, a birth of the water and the spirit when they obeyed what Peter said to do. Praise God!
I am so thankful that I obeyed the direction of the Lord and His word. I am so thankful to have been filled with the Holy Spirit and to have been baptized in the name of Jesus. If you haven’t received the Holy Spirit, you can today! If you want to be baptized we can make a plan for you to get baptized in His name.
From that day of Pentecost until now it has kept on going and growing.
Surely the words of Isaiah were fulfilled...
1 “Sing, O barren, You who have not borne! Break forth into singing, and cry aloud, You who have not labored with child! For more are the children of the desolate Than the children of the married woman,” says the Lord.
The children of the married woman was Israel and the children of the desolate was the church of the living God.
120 received the Holy Spirit. Then 3,000 received the Holy Spirit. And on and on it went until it reached the farthest parts of the earth. The Lord added to the church daily...
Acts 2:47 (NKJV)
47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.
Persecution scattered it, but couldn’t stop it. The church grew any how.
In Rome the Holy Spirit was poured out. In the palace of Caesar the truth was preached.
Resistance could not stop it. All of the Caesars of Rome could not stop it. Storms could not stop it. Oceans could not stop the spread of the gospel and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
The God’s Venus and Jupiter could not stop the spread of the Holy Spirit. Diana of the Ephesians could not stop the great revival that God was bringing.
The devil with every trick that he tried could not stop the pouring out of God’s Spirit on people. The Lord is still adding to the church daily!
It reached even unto us, it reached down through the millennia down to us here today.
More are the children of the desolate in the absence of her Lord, then are the children of the married woman when the bride groom was present.
Again and again when the people of God have been in desolate, dark places, the Lord has appeared to his church. The church is still the apple of His eye as scripture puts it.
Through out the centuries Isaiahs’ word has been fulfilled, when the church gets in a barren place, when the church gets low, when dark seasons come… Sing O barren! God is still on the throne! He’s still pouring His Spirit out. He’s still blessing His children!
This is a great promise for every one of us to grab a hold of!
There are times when life gets you into a barren place. There are times when life takes you into dark seasons. There are times when you get into a pitiful condition.
Maybe it’s because you feel like you have failed. Maybe it’s because someone you leaned on failed. Maybe it’s because of a combination of worldliness and spiritual lethargy. Maybe it’s because of a lack of exercising of faith because life has beaten you around so much that you have gotten down in your spirit.
Maybe it’s from a lack of faithfulness to the house of God and supporting the work God is doing. Maybe it’s because there have been no tears, no prayers, no worship.
Whatever the reasons or case maybe. Let me tell you the truth every person will come to a season where they feel desolate, feel barren, walk through a dark lonely place. I’ve learned it happens to people and it happens to a church.
What is a person to do when it happens?
Some want to let their emotions and feelings lead them. Surrender control over to the storm that has over taken them.
I’ll tell you what they should do… Go ahead and sing! That’s what you should do. Sing! Lay hold on the promises God has put in front of you.
1 “Sing, O barren, You who have not borne! Break forth into singing, and cry aloud, You who have not labored with child! For more are the children of the desolate Than the children of the married woman,” says the Lord.
So Lord, here I go. I am going to sing! You said the children of the desolate would be many, so I am going to lay hold on that promise.
The more barren and the more desolate the situation is, the greater God’s glory is when He fulfills His promise!
Greater is the blessing in the barren and desolate place when God pours out His Spirit!
Greater is the refreshing on hearts that are darkened when God visits them, somewhere in you this word ought to stir something up. It ought to strike some kind of faith in your heart. Go ahead and sing!
Sometimes we feel very lost, and very desolate. But just hold on to God, hold on to His promise change is coming. Get ready! Sing O Barren!
Verse 2 says…Get ready!
2 “Enlarge the place of your tent, And let them stretch out the curtains of your dwellings; Do not spare; Lengthen your cords, And strengthen your stakes.
Why? Because God is not done yet!
3 For you shall expand to the right and to the left, And your descendants will inherit the nations, And make the desolate cities inhabited.
It’s just a season so sing!
6 For the Lord has called you Like a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, Like a youthful wife when you were refused,” Says your God.
7 “For a mere moment I have forsaken you, But with great mercies I will gather you.
Sing! God is getting ready make the field fertile again. The barren is about to produce again. The empty shall be filled!
The glory of God will shine brighter in your life than it ever has before… so start rejoicing!