Psalm
80:3, 7, 19 A Plea for Restoration of the Church 6/12/2016 <
>
#1. The Shepherd
of Israel (2Pet 1:21. Psalm 80:1-2, Rom 8:32, Eph
1:4)
#2. A Vine (Psalm 80:8-11. Luke
16:31)
#3. The Vineyard (Psalm 80:15, Matt
21:43)
#4. Quicken Us (Psalm
80:18. Matt 24:9-12.18:17)
3/21/2004 Psalm 80 A Plea for Restoration of the
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Please open your Bibles to Psalm
80:1 (2X). You find the Psalms about in the middle of your Bibles. This is
a Psalm of Asaph. Asaph lived around the time that David and Solomon were
reigning over the united kingdom of Israel. This was a glorious time of victory
over all the enemies of God, and during Solomon's reign, it was a time of peace
throughout all the land. Then why is there so much despair in this Psalm?
Why is it in some places so gloomy, as if the kingdom is almost destroyed? Let
me make a suggestion: Was Asaph a prophet? Of course, He was a prophet!
God the Holy Spirit was guiding Asaph's hand, so that the psalms that He wrote
ended up in the Bible, which we call "The Word of God". It is the
Word of God, because "holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost" (2Pet 1:21). It
means that God the Holy Spirit moved their hands and their mouths. God was
directing every word when people spake Divine revelations from God, so that
what they wrote during a period of about 1500 years, ended up to be totally in
harmony from beginning to end. This is the nature of God: God cannot lie.
This is the nature of the Bible, having been written by One Author during those
1500 years. You don't find that at ail in human writings. That is why Asaph
prophesied in this Psalm of the bad times that were coming for the OT
Congregation as well as for the NT Church. God made Asaph prophesy those future
hard times. The text for our sermon today is taken from three verses, Psalm 80:3,7,19, which all three
sound almost identical. I will just quote one of them:
Ps 80:19 Turn us again,
O LORD God of hosts, cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.
The title of our sermon today is, "A Plea for Restoration of the Church". That is
what this Psalm is all about. It is "A
Plea for Restoration of the Church". The church has fallen in
pieces, because of man's sin. This psalm is a prayer to God to repair the
breeches, and to repair the centrality of the Word of God in the Church. God
allowed the Church to fall down; only God can raise us up again.
#1 The Shepherd of Israel (2Pet 1:21. Psalm 80:1-2, Rom 8:32, Eph 1:4)
Ps 80:1 «To the chief
Musician upon Shoshannimeduth, A Psalm of Asaph.» Give ear, O
Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock;
thou that dwellest (between) the
cherubim,
shine forth.
Ps 80:2 Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh
stir up thy strength, and come and save
us.
The Psalm opens with an address to the Shepherd of Israel.
Who is the Shepherd of Israel? We are drawn like a magnet to the 23rd
Psalm, where God says, "The LORD is my Shepherd; I shall not
want" (2X). When we see all four letters capitalized, we know that
"the LORD" stands for "Jehovah". Well, think about this now
If Jehovah is my Shepherd, then I will most certainly lack
nothing of all that might be of benefit to me. His providence for
me, i. e. the work of His hands for me according to the wisest plan of God, is
exceeding abundantly above all that we could think or ask for in this life. And
if Jehovah is my personal Shepherd, then He loves me. He does not love
everybody, as you know, but He loves me! It means that He will watch over me
every minute of the day, and He will make sure that nothing will cross my path
that could in any way be harmful to me, unless it is according to His plan.
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And if Jehovah is my Shepherd, if
the Lord Jesus Christ is my Shepherd, then all my sins have been forgiven, and
what more do I want? "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him
up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us ail things?"
(Rom 8:32). This all is implied in the words, "The LORD is my
Shepherd". Now, Psalm 80:1 opens up with, "Give ear, O
Shepherd of Israel". We beseech Jehovah, the Shepherd of Israel, to
listen to our prayer. It means that every individual of Israel could now
acknowledge, "The LORD is my Shepherd". Was this true of the
nation of Israel, the physical descendants of Jacob? No! At any time in the
history of the nation of Israel after they came out of Egypt, most of the
people in that nation remained unsaved. No! The Israel that God has in view is the
Israel of God, which consists of all the saints of the OT and the NT
periods of time throughout the world. But God's dealings with the OT nation of
Israel were types and pictures of how God would deal with the NT church.
Therefore, in Psalm 80 the focus is first on the OT nation of Israel. We read
in verse 1, "Thou that leadest Joseph like a flock". This is a
surprising statement out of the mouth of Asaph, who prophesied at the time of
David and Solomon, who were of the tribe of Judah. Joseph was the 11th
son of Jacob, and as you know, Joseph was his favorite son because he was the
son of Rachel, whom Jacob loved more than any of his other wives. To lead
Joseph like a flock means to lead all Joseph's descendants like a flock.
Indeed God led all the descendants of Joseph out of Egypt but God led all the
other 12 tribes out of Egypt at the same time. Why are they not mentioned? Why
did God specially mention Joseph? Since Joseph was the favorite son of Jacob,
he received 2 tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh. The 2nd
son of Rachel before she died was Benjamin. Is it not surprising that
Ephraim, Manasseh and Benjamin are the only tribes mentioned here in
Psalm 80? And yet, entire Israel is in view, not just the Northern kingdom of
Israel, because Benjamin belongs to the Southern Kingdom of Judah. And so, God
applied here the principle of a SYNECDOCHE. I wrote this word on the board,
so that the children will know how to spell it. A synecdoche is a figure
of speech whereby a fraction is representing the whole. Ephraim, Manasseh and
Benjamin, are representing all of Israel. But why does God only mention three
tribes descending from Rachel, the favorite of Jacob? I believe God teaches us
here another principle: Does God have favorites? That is indeed true.
God is not a respecter of persons, but God does have favorites. The Bible says
that God is not a respecter of persons, which means that God saves
people from ail walks of life: rich as well as poor, from all ages: old as well
as young, from all nations: Jews as well as Gentiles, from all races: blacks as
well as whites. When God says that He is not a respecter of persons, it means that
God does not practice any racial prejudice. But God does have favorites.
His favorites are those who are called "the remnantchosen
by grace", chosen out of every race, and nation, and tribe, and
people, and tongue. These are His elect, which are mentioned in Eph
1:4, and in hundreds of other places throughout the Bible. In the NT time
God gathers His elect in churches throughout the world. In the OT time, God
gathered His elect mostly from the OT church, the congregation of Israel. They
are the ones in view here. We must
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remember
that God's language to individuals is different from His language to the OT
church or to the NT church. To individuals God says, "You are mine, I
hold you in My hand, you shall never perish, neither
shall any man pluck you out of My hand". But to a church God says,
"Remember from whence thou art fallen, and repent; or else I will come
unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of its place, except
thou repent". In other words, God says, "Shape up, or else i will
ship you out". Or to say it again in other words: God's favor rests upon
those churches and congregations that remain faithful to the Word of God. Thus,
God's favor on churches is conditional. And even though we realize that
God's grace is responsible for the obedience of the people, God acts as if
we are responsible. We must keep this in mind when we look now at the
following verses in Psalm 80, where we read,
·
Turn Us Again, O God (Psalm
80:3-7, Num 6:24-26)
Ps 80:3 Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face
to shine; and we shall be saved.
Ps 80:4 O LORD God of hosts, how long wilt thou
be angry against the prayer of thy people?
Ps 80:5 Thou feedest them with the bread of tears; and givest them
tears to drink in great measure.
Ps 80:6 Thou makest us a
strife unto our neighbours: and our enemies laugh among themselves.
Ps 80:7 Turn us again, O God of hosts, and cause
thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.
"Turn us again". What does this mean? It means,
we are beseeching God to bestow His favor on the church as He has done in the
past. For example, when God brought the children of Israel out of Egypt,
even the unsaved heathen could see God's protecting hand on Israel. When God
brought the children of Israel into the land of Canaan, even the unsaved
Canaanites could see that God favored Israel. When God put David on the throne
of Israel, even the unsaved Philistines could see that the Lord favored David,
and thus the Cherethites, a Philistine tribe, became his bodyguard. When the
Lord Jesus Christ went back to heaven and the Holy Spirit was poured out, even
the unsaved rulers of the Roman Empire could see that the church grew by leaps
and bounds and was unstoppable. When the Reformation started about 500 years
ago, it lit an entire continent on fire, and in those countries where the Bible
ruled another Roman Empire was kicked out. Ail these are examples of
God's favor bestowed on the people of the church. Not that they deserved those
favors, but God turned the hearts of the people, their zeal for God and
for His people made them very bold, and God caused His face to shine on
the church. What does it mean for God to "cause His face to shine"?
Do you remember the Doxology from Num 6:24-26? "The LORD bless
thee, and keep thee: The LORD make his
face shine upon thee, and
be gracious unto thee: The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give
thee peace". And when the Lord gives us peace it means peace with God,
which means that He has saved us. That is why the 2nd half of verses
3 and 7 says, "cause Thy face to shine, and we shall be saved".
If you compare verses 3 and 7 you see that verse 7 expresses the same theme a
little stronger. Verse 3 says, "O God", and verse 7 says, "O God
of hosts", which means, "O God of the armies". This is
not referring to the armies of Israel, but to the armies of heaven.
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We are beseeching God to come
to our aid in reviving the church, and to come with all His might and
with all the armies of heaven, to turn the hearts of people around, so that the
church may again flourish as it has done in the past. This is our plea
for the church. Has the church fallen in disrepair these days?
Absolutely yes! The Bible is no longer the authority in most churches. In most
churches women are in authority. In most churches, God may no longer be
sovereign. In most churches God may only be loving, and nothing else. In most
churches, God is the servant of mankind. In most churches people are allowed to
divorce one another and to divorce from God, but God is not allowed to divorce
them. In most churches God is a like a loving grandfather who nervously watches
how everything unfolds on this earth and who is powerless to do anything about
it. This all started when the churches began to doubt the authority of
the Word of God, like Eve did in the Garden of Eden. Let us learn from
this Psalm, which, in the following verses, has been written in the form of a
parable.
#2. A Vine (Psalm 80:8-11, Luke 16:31)
Ps 80:8 U Thou hast
brought a vine out of Egypt: thou hast cast out the heathen (Can), and planted
it.
Ps 80:9 Thou preparedst room before it. and didst cause it to take
deep root, and it filled the land.
Ps 80:10-11 The hills
were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars. She
sent out her boughs unto the sea (Med. S.) and her branches unto the river
(Euph. R.)
Here we are taking a step
back in history to the glory days when God brought the children of Israel
out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. The nation of Israel is
compared here to a vine, which God removed from an unkindly soil in
Egypt, to the happier regions of the land of Canaan. Why a vine?
God uses the metaphor of a vine, because a vine is a plant that is weak
and lowly, needing support when it is supported, it may become wild
and overtaking other plants by its excessive growth. And when it is restrained
by the pruning knife and is fertilized, it is capable of producing much
fruit, most valuable fruit. But if It is barren it
is the most unprofitable of all plants or trees and only fit for the fire.
In all these aspects the vine is a fitting description of the church, both the
OT church as well as the NT church. Here God compares the nation of Israel as a
vine that is brought out of Egypt. This was a time of glory for the
congregation of Israel under Moses and under Joshua. This was a time when
Almighty God made His presence known in the pillar of cloud by day and
the pillar of fire by night. This was a time when God miraculously fed the
entire nation every morning with manna from heaven, and He gave them water
to drink out of a Rock. This was a time when in every battle God gave them victory
over their enemies This was a time when their clothes
did not wear out, and their shoes did not wear out. This was a time when
God was present within the camp of Israel as shown by the Ark of the
Covenant and by many signs and wonders which He wrought in
their midst. Yes, these were the glory days. If there was ever a time when
people could receive faith by seeing miracles, this was the time. But God's
program of salvation is not through
outward signs and wonders. "If they hear not Moses and the prophets,
neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead". (Luke
16:31).
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Salvation comes by faith, and not by sight. God demonstrated this
in Heb 3, declaring that most of the children of Israel who came out of Egypt
remained in unbelief, which means that they remained unsaved and will
stand on the Last Day before God's Judgment throne. God demonstrated this in Isa
5 where God used the parable of a vineyard representing the House of
Israel, and where God compares the vine with the house of Judah. God planted
the choicest vine, but it did not bear good fruit. God used the vine in
parables given in Ezek 15, 17, 19. The Lord Jesus used a vine in a
parable in John 15, and He used a vineyard in a parable given in Matt
21. And thus, the metaphor of a vine is used in the Bible often to
represent both the OT church as well as the NT church. But in all these
parables, except the one in John 15, the vine is a degenerate vine. God planted
the choicest vine, but left to its own nature the vine degenerates into
a worthless, fruitless weed, that is only good to kindle a fire. That was the
condition of the nation of Israel and that is also the condition of people in
the NT church. This is inherent in human nature. We all came into the world
with such a nature that we will gravitate to sin whenever God's loosens the
grip of His hand. And thus the vine
·
Was Broken Down (Psalm 80:12-14)
Ps 80:12 Why hast thou then broken down her hedges, so that all
they which pass by the way do
pluck
her?
Ps 80:13-14 The boar
out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it.
Return, we beseech thee, O God of hosts: look down from heaven, and behold, and
visit this vine;
Who broke it down? God did.
Do not claim that Satan has destroyed the church. Satan can only do those
things that God allows him to do. Even though he is wicked to the core, Satan
still remains God's servant because, if he wants to do what God did not
plan, God would stop him at the beginning of his evil work. And since the evil
works of Satan are all within the plan of God, and since Satan is a spirit who
must carry out his evil works through human bodies, it stands to reason that
all the unsaved are also firmly under God's control. Therefore, ail the unsaved
are servants of God in the sense that they can only do what God has
planned in the beginning. For example, all acts of terrorism like that on
9/11/01, were an integral part of God's plan from before the foundation of the
world. God is not surprised by any actions of man, because God cannot learn
new things from the actions of man. God is perfect in all His knowledge of
all that has come to pass and all that will come to pass. And thus, when we
read in verse 12 that God has broken down the hedges He had built around His
choicest vine, it means that God has withdrawn His hand of protection from His
church and God allowed her to degenerate into a fruitless vine. Why did
God break down her hedges, or her walls? We do not know. But because God
showed us this picture, we have been warned that this could happen to us
as well. God described first how He lifted up this vine and bestowed on her
much honor, but because she degenerated to a fruitless vine, God allowed her to
be plundered by all who pass by. God allowed her to be plundered by the boar
out of the wood. The boar is a male wild swine. It is untamed and
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lives in the
wilderness of this world. Who does that boar represent? Historically
this boar may represent the nations of Assyria and Babylon who wasted the
northern kingdom of Israel and subsequently the Southern kingdom of Judah at
God's command. But let not the Christian church imagine that these things
relate only to her eldest sister, the OT congregation. Out of all the incidents
and events that occurred, during the 1400 years that God was writing the
OT, He chose those events that would be of use to the NT church. We must take
these warnings seriously, and use them in the doctrines that we develop from
the Bible. We have received greater mercies and more excellent gifts than
the OT congregation. Therefore, we should be excited in greater thankfulness
and more excellent virtues than they of the OT congregation. If the NT
church sins in the same example of unbelief as the OT church has done,
unbelief in certain portions of the Word of God, then we should expect to see
the favor of heaven withdrawn, and the secular government, instead of
supporting the church, shall be used by God to crush the church. Then her
discipline will disappear, her unity will be broken, her doctrines will be
perverted, her worship will be deformed, her practice will be corrupted, her
possessions will be alienated, and her revenues will be seized. Until, at the
command of God, some antichristian power will be loosed to execute upon the
church the vengeance of God for her crimes. That is why we must pray for the
church, because we can see that the NT church is treading in the footsteps of
her eldest sister, the OT congregation. Therefore, it comes at no surprise that
we see in verse 14 of this Psalm the
hinge, turning from the OT time to the NT time. The saints are
beseeching God to "look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this
vine". God did that. God sent His only begotten Son. The Lord Jesus
Christ came down and visited this vine, the nation of Israel. He visited:
#3. The Vineyard
(Psalm 80:15. Matt 2.1:43)
Ps 80:15 And the vineyard which thy right hand
hath planted, and (the branch) (the Son) whom thou
madest strong for thyself.
God has lifted a vine out of Egypt, and planted it in the land of
Canaan, The Lord Jesus visited the vineyard that He has planted. Then He told a
parable of the vineyard to the Pharisees of His days and Jesus concluded this
parable in Matt 21:43, "Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of
God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits
thereof. How did God implement this decision? After Pentecost in the 1st
century AD, God lifted His elect out of the Jews and out of the Gentiles and
planted them in various churches throughout the Roman Empire. This is the NT
vineyard, which God's right hand has planted. Christ is the Vine and we are
the branches. Psalm 80:15 speaks about the Lord Jesus Christ. In your KJ
Bible, you read in this verse "the branch". But the Hebrew
word is not a branch at all. The Hebrew word is "Ben", which
always means "Son". The 2nd half of verse 15 should
read, "And the Son whom Thou madest strong for Thyself. It is
beyond any doubt that this verse speaks about the Son of God whom God made
strong for His own
purposes. Why did the Lord Jesus Christ need to be made strong?
God the Son took up residence in
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the body of the Son of Mary, who became Jesus, the Carpenter of
Nazareth. He was fully God and fully man. As God, He did not need to be
made strong, but as man, He needed to be made very strong, because He
was our Redeemer, our Substitute before the Judgment Throne of
God. There He had to bear the guilt of the sins of many. There He was condemned
to suffer the equivalent of the penalty that was due to our sins. That
penalty is an eternity in Hell. That is why the Lord Jesus had to suffer
the equivalent of an eternity in Hell. No mere human being could endure such
great suffering without being consumed in the process. But the Lord Jesus could
endure that, because He was God. And this is how the righteousness of God was
satisfied: the penalty for our sins was fully paid. This penalty was not
paid for every human being on this earth, because not every human being is
going to enter the courts of heaven. Only a Remnant will be saved. And
therefore, the Lord Jesus Christ did not suffer the equivalent of an eternity
in Hell for those who themselves go to Hell. Christ paid on the cross for the
sins of all those whom the Father has given Him, the elect. The elect
are those whom the Father has chosen to salvation before the foundation of the world.
And because Christ paid for the sins of the elect, they will believe
this Gospel when they hear it. God the Holy Spirit will make them "Born
Again", to make sure that they believe it. Turning back to Psalm 80.
we notice that both verses 15 and 17 speak about the Lord Jesus Christ.
How is it then that verse 16 is wedged within this context as referring
to the vineyard being burned with fire? Is that so? Was the vineyard
Ps 80:16 (#Js) burned with fire, (£4$) cut down. They perish at the
rebuke of thy countenance.
We can see that the words "It is" are printed in
italics. It means that the KJ translators
have inserted these words as a suggestion. We can just as well insert the words
"He is", so that this verse also fits the context. The 1st
half of verse 16 will then read as follows: "He
is burned with fire, He is cut
down". This refers to the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ.
While He hung on the cross, He suffered the equivalent of the burning fires of
Hell. Was He also cut down? We read in Isa 53:8. "he was cut off
out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he
stricken". Does this refer to the physical death of the Lord Jesus
Christ? Not likely. Before He died the Lord Jesus said, "it is finished"
and from that moment on, He was no longer struck for any transgressions. This
was the end of His suffering for our sins. Then He said, "Father, into
Thy hands I commend My Spirit", and then He died. But He did not die
while He was paying for our sins. His body went into the grave and His Spirit
went into heaven to be in fellowship with the Father. But when we look at Psalm
80:16 we see a sudden shift in focus to others. "They perish at the
rebuke of thy countenance". Who are they? They are the enemies of
Christ. At the cross the Lord Jesus Christ was judged, and we were judged also
in Him, because the Bible says, "we were crucified with Christ".
All the elect were judged with Christ and in Christ. But all the reprobate were
also judged for their sins. The fact that Christ passed them by, the fact that
their sins were absent from Christ's atonement, means that they also were
judged, but the
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sentence will be handed out in the future, on the Last Day.
Paraphrased we can say, "They, the enemies of Christ, shall perish,
they shall suffer the 2nd death, at their rebuke from the Lord Jesus
Christ at His appearing on the Last Day". And then God repeats the
statement made in verse 15,
Ps 80:17,
Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the Son of man whom thou madest
strong for thyself.
Lord, let the power of Thy hand rest upon the Son of Man
who sits at Thy right hand. Let Him be strong and rebuke the enemy so
that the church will come alive again. Lord:
#4. Quicken Us. make us alive! (Psalm 80:18, Matt 24:9-12,18:17)
Ps 80:18, So will not we go back from thee:
quicken us, and we will call upon thy name.
Lord, we want to serve You. Give us zeal and fervor to serve the
Lord Jesus Christ. Make us on fire for Christ and we will not go back to our
old sins. We will call upon Your name and spread Your Word throughout all the
world. If it is possible in any way, let the church come alive again. We
realize that it is not always possible to expect a revival of the
church. If the end of time draws close, we will see a general decline in
people's interest in spiritual things. The Lord Jesus spoke about this in:
Mat 24:9-10 Then shall they deliver you up to be
afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my
name's sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and
shall hate one another.
Mat 24:11 And many false prophets shall rise,
and shall deceive many.
Mat 24:12 And because iniquity shall abound, the
love of many shall wax cold.
They shall try to silence the Gospel that goes out of
churches that are still faithful to the Word of God. This is how they shall
afflict us and effectively kill us: They shall muzzle the faithful churches
because we still speak about homosexuals, instead of gays. We still abhor
fornication, instead of calling it a relationship. We still identify sexual perversion,
instead of calling it love. We want to live separate from the world, whereas
the world calls it intolerance. They shall accuse us of blaspheming the Holy
Spirit, when we do not tolerate additional messages from God, such as speaking
in tongues. They shall accuse us of spreading hate literature when we
distribute tracts with verses from the Bible. That is why we shall be hated of
ail nations, because we adhere to the words of Scripture. Then many shall be
offended and shall hate us and try to hurt us through legal maneuvers. And all
these things are the fruits of false prophets, who shall deceive many. They
shall afflict us in various ways, but remember that afflictions are necessary
for our growth, and afflictions work for glory. But who brings on the
afflictions? "Woe unto the world because of offences! For it must needs
be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!"
(Matt 18:7) It is necessary that afflictions come, and as we are approaching
the end of time, afflictions will become more intense and more numerous, but
remember what the Lord Jesus said: "because iniquity shall abound, the
love of many shall wax cold." Because iniquity against God
shall be multiplied, the love of many for God shall grow cold.
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Some of us cannot imagine that it could get worse. Churches go
apostate one after another, and people continue to attend such churches, not
knowing where else to go. Seminaries continue to crank out pastors who are not
fit for their job. Homosexuals continue to invade church offices. And so, the
plea to quicken us, to revive the church through the Word of God is
sincere. This is the only revival that we genuinely can call a revival. It must
be through the Word of God, because "Faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the Word of God". Pray that God will bring us such a
revival in this church,
Pray that we shall be saved from the avalanche of apostacy
sweeping the world. Pray that our church shall hold strong in the storm
of lies and deception. If we in this church shall strengthen our faith through a
more intense study of the Word of God, then we shall know that this came to
pass because God caused His face to shine upon us. You remember that the
beginning of this Psalm starts out softly and gently. As we progressed through
this Psalm the tone became more desperate, and the pleading became more
vigorous. Toward the end, it has become a cry for rescue from our Redeemer, and
instead of a worldwide revival, we are willing to settle for a local revival.
It is a plea for the restoration of our church, a plea for God to turn
us again as in the days of the Reformation. Even though we have a very
small congregation, we have already experienced two schisms in the past 9
years. This is incredible and it tells us what a turbulent time we live in.
This tells us that we are in great need of prayers for our church. Our prayer
begins in verse 3 of this Psalm,
Ps 80:3 Turn us
again, O God, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.
In verse 7, our prayer intensifies. There we read,
Ps 80:7 Turn us
again, O God of hosts, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.
In verse 19 our prayer is most intense when we pray,
Ps 80:19 Turn us
again, O Jehovah Elohim of hosts, cause thy face to shine; and we shall be
saved.
This address, "Jehovah Elohim of hosts" occurs
only 20 times in the entire Bible. Lord, cause Thy face to shine upon us, and
we shall be saved. We shall be saved because God wants it. We do not lose sight
of our goal. Our focus is to meet Jesus in the air on the Last Day. What
a glorious day that will be. It will be a day of fellowship with Christ. It
will be a day when the marriage feast may begin.
Re 19:7
Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of
the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.
Re 19:8 And to her was granted that she should
be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the
righteousness of saints.
Re 19:9 And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the
marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings
of God.
AMEN.
Let us turn to the Lord in prayer.
3/21/2004 Psalm 80/A Plea for Restoration of the Church Page 10