And his father which gave them
is greater than he, and no man is able to pluck out his father's
hand. He and his father won. He's the great shepherding who
calls his sheep by name. He's the shepherd who laid down
his life for his sheep. No man took it from him. The
command of God was that he could give it up and take it back.
And he did just that. And David says this, he's my
shepherd. Or he could say, he's my shepherd. He's my shepherd,
this is my shepherd he's talking about. He says, I shall never
want for anything necessary. I shall never want. How many
of us have had this psalm brought to our minds in times of trouble
and sorrow and found great comfort therein? David was a man who
knew something about desiring the restoration of the soul. He was a man He was a king. He was a man after God's own
heart, and he was a sinner saved by grace. He was a poet, an artist. He was often given to introspection. He did a lot of that naval looking,
if you'll read his psalms. It often gave him trouble to
his soul by looking inward. And the tenor of this poem reads
as one contemplating things desired when the soul is in struggle.
Things like green pastures and still waters and paths of righteousness
and safe passages through this dark and evil world filled with
the shadows of death. And the comforting knowledge
that the Lord our shepherd, armed with rod and with staff, will
protect him, ease and sustain him in the midst of his enemies,
fellowship with him, anoint him, give him joy, give him absolute
goodness and mercies and an eternal hope and home, and the soul's
restoration. The soul's restoration. The soul
is the seed of our affections, our desires, things that move
our heart and enthuse our minds. The soul is really us. When God
made man of the dust, he breathed into him the breath of life and
he became a living soul. For the believer, this language
is the language of experience, addressing the numerous times
when he or she has lost the joy of their salvation, the sense of their relationship
with the Lord God, the loss of their soul, and then found that
the great shepherd has been with them all along, all along. met every need and has given
us exceeding abundantly above what we'd ever think or ask.
We can sing the song with understanding, the words of the old hymn, prone
to wonder, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Likewise,
every believer can confess of those precious times of recovery,
when the Lord restored his soul, when sweet fellowship was restored
with Jesus Christ. when patience had had her perfect
work, when their soul was restored. The word restore denotes a presupposition
that something is missing or lost. In this text, it is the
soul that seems lost. I say seems because us frail
creatures often form a dark perspective when troubles come our way and
sorrows attend us. In a spiritual sense, the loss
of the soul represents the person's supposed loss of ability to commune
with God due to pursuits of the flesh. God's relationship with
the believer never alters. Never. No matter what you do,
or don't do, or think, or don't think, God's relationship with
you never, ever changes. So if you're one of those parents
that tells your children when they act up that Jesus is going
to be upset with them, stop doing that. Stop thinking that, because
it's wrong thinking. It's wrong thinking. His relationship
with us never alters. But sadly and truthfully, our
relationship with him often does. And so we read the Psalms of
David. We find ourselves doing that very often. This is also
applicable to spiritual death. There's no doubt about that.
Incurred in the fall when Adam sinned against God and lost his
soul in the Garden of Eden. What did the great shepherd do?
He slayed some lambs to cover the lost souls of the
sinful pair. Was it not a lamb that Abel offered
at the first sacrifice to keep the way of the tree of life?
Did not the great shepherd, the spotless lamb of God, the reigning
restorer of souls, restore what we lost in Adam by himself on
the cross of Calvary? Christ is who David is talking
about. Christ, the restorer of souls.
And if he is a restorer of souls, he must be first a seeker. of
souls. He's the seeker of the lost sheep
according to Luke chapter 15. And we as offspring of our fettled
head were born in a state of spiritual death. We, our soul
was lost and we had no interest or ability or inclination or
desire to find God. There is none righteous, no not
one. There is none that seeketh after the Lord. This is the language
of scripture. We were separated from God. We
wandered in a state of oblivious darkness and spiritual ignorance
and would have stayed that way gladly had not the sheep or rather
had not the shepherd sought us out. Thanks be unto God that
the restorer of our souls always knew where we were and came to
earth to find us and fetch us home. And such knowledge inspired
Newton to write the words that these ladies just sang so very
beautifully. I once was lost. but now I'm
found, was blind, but now I see. Our soul shall not want for restoration
because it's clear in this passage of scripture, he restoreth our
souls. He restoreth my soul. Throughout the word of God, the
great shepherd of the sheep is pictured as that, typified and
declared to be the restorer, the restorer. In the book of
Ruth, Boaz, the kinsman redeemer, was the one with the right to
redeem. It was clear to be the restorer of all that Naomi lost. She left that place rich and
came back poor. She said, my name was Naomi,
the delight when I left. Now my name is Myra, which is
bitterness. But she had a shepherd. She didn't
know she had a shepherd, wasn't sure about it, but she had a
shepherd named Boaz, her near kinsman. And for the love of
another person, for the love of Ruth, With the love of Ruth,
he restored everything to Naomi. Everything, everything she lost.
Everything. In Isaiah 58, verses 11 to 12,
the church, under the guidance and supply of Christ, led by
the great shepherd to the rivers of living water, is said to be
a repairer of the breach and a restorer of paths to dwell
in. Indeed, it is Christ through
the church and the preaching of the gospel and the fellowship
of the saints that breaches are repaired. We have, after all,
what is called the ministry of reconciliation and paths of righteousness,
which is the life in the gospel, is restored. It must have been
lost somewhere along the line. Jeremiah spoke of one who would
restore the health of his people. Look over in Jeremiah chapter
30. Jeremiah chapter 30, verse 16 and 17, it says this,
therefore, all they that devour thee shall be devoured, and all
thine adversaries, every one of them shall go into captivity,
and they that spoil thee shall be a spoiler, and all that pray
upon thee will I give for a prey, for I will restore health unto
thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord, because
they called thee an outcast, a pariah, saying, this is Zion,
who no man seeketh after. Some men seek after Zion, but
the enemies say no man seek after Zion. Zion is the church of the
living God. The world calls them a bunch
of outcasts and pariahs. God says, I'll heal their wounds,
I'll restore them. I'll restore the health of those
people. How are we healed? We were healed on Calvary, with
his stripes, That's an interesting phrase. With his stripes, we
are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray.
That's past tense. And with his stripes, present
tense. And it's always present tense. We are healed. When David returned to Ziklag,
being rejected after fighting with Achish against the Philistines,
even the Philistines didn't want anything to do with David. They
didn't think much of him. He found the Amalekites attacked
and taken Ziklag and had taken the Israelites and he went with
David as he fled from Saul. They held them captive and he
kidnapped his two wives. Things weren't looking good.
David went to war against the Amalekites, routed them and restored
all that was taken. And that's how it said, David
restored all. What have you lost? A lot. What
did you get back? More than you lost. David restored
all. In Joel chapter two in verse
21 through 28, the promise of the Messiah coming into this
world, quoted in Acts chapter two by Peter at Pentecost, the
promise of the Messiah, the promise of the coming restored, not only
of all that was lost, but also the restorer of the years that
were lost. This is especially sweet to the
people of God who often look back at those years. I've talked to men and women
this week who almost all of us talk about when we were in false
religion. Our brothers mentioned many times in the pulpit. All those days. They were lost, we think, or
so it seems. But they've been recovered for
us. they've been recovered for. Christ is the restorer of all
those lost years. In fact, he makes us look at
those lost years differently, you know, not with necessarily
shame and sadness, though there's some of that involved because
we spent those years lying on God when we stood at the pulpit
not knowing Christ at all. That was a sad place to be. We
look at those with shame, and I know you look at your life
sometimes before you knew Christ, and you think, oh my soul, what
was I thinking? What was I doing? But our Lord makes us look at
it a little bit different. The restorer of lost years, look
at Psalm 90. Psalm 90. verse fourteen oh satisfy us
early with thy mercy that we may rejoice and be glad all our
days make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted
us and the years wherein we have seen evil make us glad about
those days god is sovereign absolutely and
completely ruling all things What we went through before we
knew Christ was school. Bill Carver used to say, I spent
years and years in false religion, learning what not to believe. And that's the truth. God restores
those years. We can look back on those years
with gladness, knowing that this was God's plan. This was God's
purpose. Our steps are being ordered by
the Lord and brought to this place. He has restored those
years. Restored those years. And when Paul spoke of Christ
restoring all that the elect lost in Adam, he made it clear
that though our loss in Adam was great, our restoration by
Christ was far greater. far greater. Paul declares this
by contrasting the loss caused by the disobedience of Adam and
the gain caused by the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
speaks thus in Romans 5 beginning in verse 9 and 10 and repeating
the phrase over and over again much more. Let's read that. Romans
chapter 5, the great passage of scripture on imputation. Romans chapter five, verse nine
and 10. He says, much more then, being
now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through
him. For if when we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, being much
more reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. That's that
phrase, much more, much more, much more. Then he says it again
in verse 15, he says, but as one offense, so also is the free
gift for if through the offense of one, many be dead, much more
the grace of God and the gift of grace, which is by one man,
Jesus Christ has abounded to many, has abounded to many. Then in verse 20, it says this,
Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound, but
where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. This is the
song and heart of everyone whose soul has been restored by Jesus
Christ. Because we know what we are,
we feel what we are, we see what we are. Like our brother said
last night, you mean I thought that? That come into my mind,
I did those things, how can this be? How can this be? How could
I be a child of God? Those thoughts come up. Where
sin abounded. Oh, to believe the scriptures.
Oh, to believe the scriptures. Where sin abounded, grace did
much more abound. Much more abound. In Christ we
are forgiven a multitude of offenses, even all our sin. And that's
the way our sin is discussed New Testament. In the Old Testament,
generally, the Lord does sort of list the kinds of sins there
are. Sins of omission, sins of commission,
sins against this, sins against that. Those things are listed,
but not so in the New Testament. They come under a generic, glorious
generic word. our sins, whatever they are,
from top to bottom, from A to Z, whatever our sins are, they
are compiled in that great word, our, and they are taken care
of and were taken care of by Jesus Christ, your sin. Many
years ago, I was preaching at a fellow's house. He had invited
me to preach, and I used to have to drive about 35, 40 miles to
go down there. I was meeting with six or seven
people. There was a couple of old primitive Baptists in there,
and we were talking, and I was preaching. And one time, I just
made this statement. God, the Lord Jesus Christ, has forgiven
us all our sins, past, present, and future. And he took offense. Now, he said he was a grace believer.
Said he was. Next day he called me and said,
I'll never hear you again. I said, well, okay. I said, but
let me remind you, I didn't invite myself to your house. And I didn't get no gas money
for driving 35 miles in a 75 Buick wagon over the mountains
to get to your place to tell you folks about Jesus Christ.
I said, if you don't want to hear me again, that's fine. I'm
not going to lose any sleep over it. And I haven't. Listen to
me. God has forgiven all our sin.
Our sin. How's that? Our sin. Whatever
it is, whenever it is, that which is yet to come, forgiven. He's the restorer where sin hath
abounded. Oh, and it has abounded. Where
sin hath abounded. Grace did much more abound in
Christ. We're restored. Our soul is restored. We're healed. We're forgiven.
We're abounded toward in grace because we are sinners and Christ
is our substitute. Many years ago, I was preaching
at a conference in Tennessee, which played Kentucky yesterday,
I understand. Scott Richardson was preaching.
Somebody was June. Somebody turned on the heat instead
of the air conditioner. Scott preached seven minutes. And he finished, he said, I'm
done. I walked out and I was sitting along the edge of the
pew and he comes patting me on the shoulder and he says, well,
at least I said substitution. Well, Least Asset Substitution. God bless you.