Let us turn again to the book of Psalms, and I'll read Psalm 23. Reading Psalm 23, I suppose not only the most familiar of all the Psalms, but probably the most familiar of all the words of Holy Scripture.

The Psalm of David. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

I want us to consider really the content that we have in the third verse of this psalm. The words, he restoreth my soul, he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

But I suppose the whole of the psalm really is so remarkable, so it's always profitable to see any part of this psalm in its context and previously here in the second verse we see the Good Shepherd as the one who makes every provision for his sheep. David says, He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. The margin says the waters of quietness and we see here God's sovereignty as he brings his people into such places as this.

It's God who maketh me to lie down, he says, maketh me to lie down in green pastures. It's God who leadeth me. He wouldn't be beside the still waters. the waters of quietness without the definite leadings, directings and teachings of God himself, we see God's sovereignty. He is that one, of course, who enables us to receive the words and the promises which is what we see in the green pastures and beside the still waters. all those glorious refreshments that are to be found in the Scriptures of truth.

And we cannot just come to God's Word and seize hold of these exceeding great and precious promises. We're not to be presumptuous with God or with the Word of God. God himself must apply the promises to us. He must make us to lie down in those green pastures, and He must lead us beside those still waters, if we're going to know some real profit in our souls.

Isaiah says, Lord, Thou wilt ordain peace for us, for Thou hast wrought all our works in us. are the Lords besides Thee of our dominion over us, but by Thee only shall we make mention of Thy Name. Only by God's gracious help, by God's coming and first revealing Himself and working in us can we truly make mention of His Name. We are not worthy of the least of His favours and all the truth that He has shown unto us.

And so when we think of the green pastures, when we think of the waters of quietness and the comforts that we're able to obtain here in the Word of God, we have to conclude that it is God who by these means is the one who is able to restore our souls.

And so we come to those words at the beginning of verse 3, restoreth my soul. And that's the theme that I want to take up for a little while this morning, the divine restoration. How that soul that is so cast down, maybe because of the mystery of God's dealings in his providences, maybe the trials or troubles that are found in life, how that cast down one is restored, and the restoration is such an evident work of God himself and a sign of God's favour and God's blessing. But first of all, to look at the soul in that condition, the soul cast down, to need any restoration of course, we must first of all know what it is to be downcast. the Lord Jesus says he quite plainly in the gospel they that are whole have no need of the physician but they that are sick I came not to call the righteous but sinners unto repentance it's such an evident truth we only need a good physician when we're in a sick and a sad condition.

And so in order to know those gracious restorings we must experience first of all something of what it is to be downcast. And so it is that in this life the believer is one who does experience so many changes. It's a strange, it's a mysterious way in which The Lord God leads His people in the narrow way. It's a way of changing. Remember the language of another psalm, Psalm 55 and verse 19 concerning the ungodly. The psalmist says there, because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God. That's the ungodly. But all those reverses, those difficulties that come into the lives of God's people, They do engender in their souls something of the fear of God. They can't understand, and yet they're brought to that place of submission. That recognition that God is one who is sovereign in all his ways, all his dealing.

The thinking, first of all, of what it is that causes the soul to be so cast down, and I mentioned some three reasons, some three basic reasons. First of all, I suppose we are often cast down because of ourselves, because of who we are, because of the old nature that we continually carry about with us. From whence doth sin proceed? Well, remember what the Lord Jesus Christ himself says in the course of his ministry in the Gospel. And we find it in the Synoptic Gospels. There, for example, in Mark's account, in Mark chapter 7, at verse 21, in his teaching, the Lord says, from within. Out of the heart of men proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these things come from within and defiled the man."

It's ourselves. It's our nature, our fallen nature. The nature with which we are born. And if we're born again, it's what we often refer to as the old nature. But it's that nature that is in all men, when we think of man in his natural states. The wicked are like the troubled sea, when he cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt, says the prophet Isaiah. And when a person knows something of the grace of God, these things begin to trouble that man. They cause him to be cast down, and that's what we see, of course, in those Psalms that we read, Psalms 42 and 43. We have that seriloquy, don't we? where the psalmist keeps on addressing himself and saying to himself, why art thou cast down, O my soul? Why art thou disquieted within me? He's troubled, he's troubled because of himself, there's that in himself, that in his nature that does more than perplex him, it brings him down, it gets him down. And it was the experience, certainly, of the Apostle Paul. We have that remarkable seventh chapter in his Epistle to the Romans, and he tells us quite clearly, I know that in May, this is the Apostle Paul speaking, and he's speaking in the present tense, he's speaking of his experience as a child of God. He was once, we know, a very self-righteous Pharisee. but in Romans 7 he's speaking not as he was but as he is now as a child of God I know that in me that is in my flesh there dwelleth no good thing he knows what he is by nature and it troubles him causes him to be burdened at times all wretched man that I am he says in that chapter You shall deliver me from the body of this death as if he's carrying a dead body everywhere he goes. And it's a tremendous burden.

And it's not only the experience of a man like Paul, it's the experience of the people of God in general, surely. It's David's experience, and yet David is set before us as the man after God's own heart. We know the language of David again, we see it in the words of his Psalms. In Psalm 38, what does David say? Verse 6 of that Psalm, I am troubled, I am bowed down greatly, I go mourning all the day long. He's poor, burdens, with a body of death. Well, so is David. But then he goes on there in the psalm, My loins are filled with a loathsome disease, And there is no soundness in my flesh, I am feeble and sore broken, I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart. Oh, this man, you see, he feels these things in the depths of his soul.

The flesh, lusting against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. Paul says these are so contrary, one to the other, and you find that you cannot do the thing that you would. I would do good, but evil is present with me. Nor there is this that causes then the soul to be downcast their self. And there's that all nature, and that all nature that's so wedded to sin. Even the Lord Jesus Himself declares as much, doesn't He, in John 3, where He speaks of the vital necessity of the new birth. A man must be born again. That that he's born of the flesh is flesh. That that he's born of the Spirit is Spirit. He must be born again. And when you're born again, you have a new nature. It's the seed of God in the man. It's the divine nature. He cannot sin.

all but what a conflict is the life of the child of God at times he's troubled, he's burdened, he's cast down because of these things he needs to have his soul restored when he's in that low place a life full of challenges but then There's not only the trouble that he feels within, there are often those troubles without. There's the world, and there's the ungodly. And now, certainly in those Psalms that we were reading, 42 and 43, we see how there, the Psalmist is so conscious of these things, Look at what he says in verse 3 of 42. My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God? Again at verse 10. As with the sword in my bones, my enemies reproach me, while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?

Here is the man you see, and he's troubled. He's troubled by himself because of his old nature. And what do the ungodly do? They taunt him. they taunt the man, they don't understand the man and they say well where's your God? you say you believe in God, why are you in such a miserable state? how hard it is to live in this fallen world for the child of God, it's enemy territory in that sense surely Christ says in the world ye shall have tribulation All the world lies in wickedness. There's trouble in the world. There's opposition in the world. Paul says, Yea, all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. These things cannot be avoided if we're going to be different to the world. The world takes account of these things and is always ready with its taunts and its accusations. And the believer is to be so different, not conforming to the ways of the world. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world, says John. All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, that's not of the Father, that's of the world. But the world is passing away, and the lust thereof.

So, there's not only the troubles that come from within oneself there's that that is all around the child of God he has to live his life God doesn't save his people and then immediately take them to himself he has a purpose to fulfill in their lives and in his wisdom and in his grace he leaves them in this world to bear testimony to himself hard as it is at times oh but what opposition, what opposition from without.

And then, of course, there's the activity of Satan himself, the great adversary. We have that word in 1 John 5, 19, the whole world lieth in wickedness, or it could be rendered, lieth in the wicked one. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. There is a spiritual realm of wickedness. There's the activity of Satan and the host of demons. And we're to be sober and vigilant. says Peter, because the devil is walking around as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. He's ever active.

Now, he becomes so active, doesn't he, when the Lord Jesus Christ is here, God manifest in the flesh. What a surge of activity we see when we read through the Gospels. those that the Lord is dealing with, so many demons possess. We would even come and seek to tempt the Lord Jesus Christ himself and that immediately after the Lord's baptizing. At his baptism we know that the Spirit descends upon him there in the form of a dove and the Father speaks those words, this is my beloved son. in whom I am well pleased, and then the Spirit is leading him into the wilderness, and he's tempted, and now Satan is so daring. If thou be the Son of God, nor we would cast doubt, as it were, upon the very words that were spoken by the Father, this is my beloved Son. If thou art the Son of God, surely if he would assault Christ himself, We're not to be surprised if he comes and assaults all those who are in Christ.

I like the remarks of the Puritan Richard Sibbes. He says, the devil since he himself was cast down labours to cast all down. His voice is down, down, down to the ground. And we delight to bring the people of God down. to cast them down to the ground.

We have, of course, the account in Holy Scripture of how sin entered into that creation that God had pronounced so very good. After the six days, He looks upon the whole of His work and pronounces it very good. And then we come to the third chapter and what do we say is recorded there? The fall. The fall of man. Man cast down. This is the activity of Satan. This is what Satan delights in. And he seeks to get an advantage over us, and we're not to be ignorant. We're not to be ignorant of this wicked foe and his devices. He's such a clever foe. And he's not just a tempter, he tempts in order that he might accuse. He could never lay any just accusation against Christ, though he throws everything, as it were, at Christ. But when he tempts us, alas, how often he overcomes us. And then he turns accuser. He's the accuser of the brethren, accusing them day and night before God. How hard it is when we fall and when we sin, how hard it is to come before God and to make our confession and to acknowledge our sin. And we will shut our lips by his accusations. We fear ourselves to be such hypocrites because we've sinned so many times. Oh, this wicked fowl. And he cast us down and we need restoring.

But David says, he restored us my soul. So let us turn in the second place to that positive aspect of the verse really, of the text. The soul restores. And this is altogether the work of God. This is God's work and no one else's work at all. We notice again the divine sovereignty. He. He. Restoreth. My soul. It's God, and it's God alone. As we saw it there in verse 2, He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. When we gain any profit from the Word of God, when we're able to feed upon God's Word, and there's much to encourage us in God's Word, it's the Lord who has to bring us into those green pastures of His Word besides those waters of quietness and it is God who has to restore the soul and to heal all our backslidings Hosea 14 and verse 4 He says I will heal their backslidings oh what a comfort is that I will heal their backsliding I will love them freely Nothing in us to make God desire us or love us when we're so bent on our backslidings, but He loves us freely. He loves us because He will love us. And so, here we have that assurance that there is restoration for the soul. What do we see in the restoring of this soul? Well, again, I want to mention three things. First of all, here we have the the language of appropriation. It's a language of appropriation. How does the psalm begin? David says, the Lord is my shepherd. He doesn't say, the Lord is the shepherd. He's my shepherd. That's appropriation, isn't it? and even when we see the psalm is so cast down in those psalms that we were reading he still uses the language of appropriation doesn't he? there in 43 verse 5 Well, right at the end, we read through 42 right to the end of 43. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Why art thou disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him who is the health of my countenance and my God. He's my God. All the language, how wonderful the language is. My God, you can say. And of course we see with the Lord Jesus in the 22nd psalm when we have that psalm opening with the awful cry when Christ is so deserted in his soul it's Christ upon the cross made sin for us who knew no sin and he feels it my God my God why hast thou forsaken me why art thou so far from helping me and from the words of my roaring oh my God I cry in the daytime but they'll hear us not, and in the night season they're not silent." It's an awful cry. And we know it belongs to the Lord Jesus because we read it in the Gospels. It's a Messianic psalm, but it's still the language of appropriation here in verses 1 and 2 of Psalm 22. My God! My God! And then verse 2, Oh my God! Even when there's that sense of desertion, it's still an acknowledgement that God is my God, that's the wonder of it. It's life eternal, says the Lord Jesus Christ, to know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent in the midst of all this downcastedness, to know that this God is my God. And we're not to be surprised really by the trials that come, the difficulties, the being brought into those places where circumstances seem to overwhelm us and we're so down at heart. Remember what Paul says in the third chapter of Philippians? where he expresses something of his desire that I may know him or his desire, his longings after Christ that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings be he made conformable to his death and I often think of the order there first of all he has to know the power of his resurrection you think in order it would be first of all sufferings. Christ suffers and Christ dies and then he's raised from the dead. But the order there in Philippians 3.10 is first the power of his resurrection. That's what Paul wants. He knows he's got to have that power of the resurrection of Christ in his soul in order to endure the fallowship of his sufferings. and to be made conformable to his death. He'd never be able to pass through those experiences, except he'd known the grace of regeneration, except he was a new man in Christ. Except he had a new nature. Well, he'd never know any of the experience, would he? Except he was born again of the Spirit of God. Then, after that, of course, he can always use that language of appropriation. Once he's born of the spirits, isn't there a connection between regeneration, the new birth, and that spirit of adoption that God gives to his people, whereby they call upon him as their God and their Father? Or there's the language of appropriation here. The Lord is he's my shepherd and because he's my shepherd I can have that assurance that there will be restoration in God's time and that restoration will come into my soul and as there's this language so also there's that language of aspiration really, longings desires When cast down, what does he want? He wants to know again the smilings, the gracious smilings of the face of God. Oh, when God looks, when God looks and when God looks so graciously and smiles. Again, Psalm 4 and verse 6, There be many that say, Who will show us any good Lord? Lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us. to know that God's lifting up the light of His countenance, He's looking upon us, He's beholding us. Remember how the Lord turned and looked upon Peter after Peter had denied the Lord three times. And all that look, how it restored his soul. He denied the Lord with blasphemies. And yet there was such grace when the Lord turned to him and beheld him, and he went out and wept those bitter tears. But it all led to his restoration. It all led to his boldness, really, on the day of Pentecost, when he stood before the multitudes to preach Christ crucified, risen again from the dead. The great blessing that the priest of Aaron were to pronounce upon the people, we sometimes use that Aaronic blessing, don't we, at the close of the service. Those words that we have at the end of the sixth chapter in the book of Numbers. And what they're doing, of course, when they pronounce those words upon Israel, is they're putting the name of God upon the people. Verse 22, in that chapter, the Lord speaks unto Moses, saying, Speak unto Aaron, and unto his sons, saying, On this wise ye shall bless the children of Israel, saying unto them, 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 they shall put my name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them." And what is the blessing? Well, it's the Lord lifting up the light of His countenance. It's the Lord causing His face to shine upon His people. Or when the Lord looks upon His people, and that look of grace, that look of mercy, David needed to know that, that smile of God's face, to restore his soul again. And so we have it there, Psalm 42 verse 5, I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance, he says. The fifth verse in Psalm 42, the help of His countenance. But it's interesting, when we look at verse 5 in the 43rd Psalm, it's not quite the same, is it? There he says, I shall yet praise Him who is the help of my countenance. In the previous 42nd Psalm, verse 5, it's the help of His countenance, God's countenance, that comes first when God's countenance is upon David well that will bring health to David's countenance as we see at the end of Psalm 43 I shall yet praise him who is the health of my countenance or when God looks you see this is what brings restoration There's that language of appropriation, yes, but there's also this aspiring after God, really, aspiration. Oh, love divine! How sweet thou art! When shall I find my willing heart? all taken up by Dinah. I remember dear old Sidney Norton, we often refer to Sidney Norton, he did come out with some gems at times, and he used to say, you know, we can easily criticize Charles Wesley because he was an Arminian. He wrote some beautiful hymns, yes, but he, we often say, well, the problem is his Arminianism is often in his hymns. But I remember Mr. Norton saying what he really liked in In Wesley's hymns was the aspiration, the longings, the yearnings after the Lord. That's what he liked about them. Such strong desires that the Lord would come and bless him in his soul. And isn't this what we see in the Psalms? This is what David longs for. This is what God is pleased to give to his people in order to their restoration. It's the God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness and shines in our heart to give the knowledge of himself in the face of Jesus Christ. That's what Paul says there in 2 Corinthians 4.6. It's in the face, it's in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what do we read right at the end of the Scriptures there at the beginning of Revelation 22. They shall see his face. The bride eyes not her garments, but her dear bridegroom's face. I will not gaze at glory, but at my King of grace. Oh, they'll see his face. We'll see his face. He's a man in heaven. And to behold him, and to know the gracious smilings of His face. And so finally here we have what is really the language of anticipation. In restoring, God causes His sheep to look forward, and He causes them to look upward. Because this expression at the beginning of verse 3 is actually in the future tense. It's a future tense, He restores my soul. This is the blessed hope of the people of God, that God will do it. Again, in those two Psalms, 42 and 43, there's hope, isn't there? Certainly it's there in Psalm 42, verses 5 and 11. David addresses himself, speaks to his own soul. It's a soliloquy. Hope thou in God, he says. and he brings in the personal pronoun he doesn't just say hope in God but he's talking to himself hope thou and it's a singular pronoun now he's telling himself now he's straight to himself hope thou in God all that grace of hope what a blessed grace it is and we think of the language of Paul hope that is seen is not hope For what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that which we see not, then we, with patience, will wait for it. We have to wait, we have to have patience, we have to have endurance. We're waiting. We look not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen. The things that are seen are temporal. The unseen things are the eternal things. We're awaiting. looking, watching, waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul says, doesn't he, I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us. Oh, this is the blessed hope of the people of God. There must be that constant looking to God. my soul wait thou only upon God for my expectation is from Him and the Lord will have us do that we have to wait upon Him and it's hard to wait for the Lord to appear to show Himself to lift up the light of His countenance but that's our only hope hope in God I shall yet praise Him who is the house of my countenance and my God. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake." Well, if the Lord will, we'll consider the other part of the verse this evening, the divine righteousness. And it says the Lord leads us into the paths of that righteousness, that divine righteousness that we know what restoration to our soul is because all our righteousness, of course, is found in the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Well, we look again, I trust, at this verse in the evening hour. The Lord bless His word to us. Amen.