Will you follow with me as I
read the entire 44th Psalm tonight? Psalm 44. We have heard with our ears,
O God, our fathers have told us, what work thou didst in their
days, in the times of old, How thou didst drive out the heathen
with thy hand, and plantest them! How thou didst afflict the people,
and cast them out, or, better translated, spread them abroad! For they got not the land in
possession by their own sword, neither did their own arms save
them, but thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy
countenance because thou hast a favor unto them. Thou art my
king, O God. Command deliverances for Jacob.
Through thee will we push down our enemies. Through thy name
will we tread them under that rise up against us. For I will
not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me. But thou
hast saved us from our enemies. and hast put them to shame that
hated us. In God we boast all the day long,
and praise thy name forever. But thou hast cast off and put
us to shame, and goest not forth with our armies. Thou makest
us to turn back from the enemy, and they which hate us spoil
for themselves Thou hast given us like sheep appointed for meat,
and hast scattered us among the heathen. Thou sellest thy people
for naught, and dost not increase thy wealth by their price. Thou
makest us a reproach to our neighbors, a scorn and a derision to them
that are round about us. Thou makest us a byword among
the heathen, a shaking of the head among the people. My confusion
is continually before me, and the shame of my face hath covered
me. For the voice of him that reproacheth
and blasphemeth by reason of the enemy and avenger, all this
is come upon us. Yet have we not forgotten thee? Neither have we dealt falsely
in thy covenant. Our heart is not turned back,
neither have our steps declined from thy way. Though thou hast
sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with
the shadow of death, if we have forgotten the name of our God,
or stretched out our hands to a strange God, shall not God
search this out? For he knoweth the secrets of
the heart. Yea, for thy sake we are killed
all the day long. We are counted as sheep for the
slaughter. Awake! Why sleepest thou, O Lord? Arise, cast us not off forever. Wherefore hidest thou thy face,
and forgettest our affliction and our oppression? For our soul
is bowed down to the dust, our belly cleaveth unto the earth. Arise for our help, and redeem
us for thy mercy's sake. This 44th psalm is one of those
psalms concerning which neither the author nor the precise historical
setting can be determined with any finality or accuracy. But this need not hurt us in
seeking to grasp the message of the psalm, for though we cannot
state with precision the exact historical setting or the author,
the climate of this psalm is very easily felt through just
one reading. It's one of those psalms like
the 80th and the 85th and the 60th psalms, where the psalmist
takes a look backward at the history of the people of God,
at former mercies, And then he takes a look outward into his
own situation and faces it with reality and with spiritual honesty. And then he records the result
of this backward and outward look in terms of certain judgments
that were formed in his mind and in certain reactions that
were framed in his heart. As he looks backward and then
outward, something happens both in his judgment and in his affections. Something transpires in his mind
and in his heart. And as we seek to lay hold of
what happened to him, I want us to do so under the title of
The Voice of the Past to the Present. And that title is not
original with me. That title was assigned to me. In terms of a request that I
deal with this psalm, and I am more than glad to do so, some
of you were at Largs a year and a half ago when I spent two nights
dealing with the psalm, and I trust it will not be tedious for you.
I hope the Lord has given some fresh light, and if He is pleased
to bring it to our hearts with freshness, it will live to us
all over again. The voice of the past to the
present. It's obvious that the focus of
attention with reference to the past, in the mind of the psalmist,
was those glorious periods in the history of Israel. Now, in
the interest of brevity and accuracy, I want to call those periods,
periods of revival. Now, by the use of that term,
I mean, and this is not the only meaning, but so that there's
accuracy of communication, I want to define what I mean in using
the term revival. I am thinking of those glorious
periods in the history of the people of God, recorded both
in Scripture and in the history of the Church, when God has come
forth in mighty power to shake whole communities and nations
with His truth and with His presence. I am speaking and thinking of
those periods which always have at least this twofold result
in terms of the structure of their effect. Those glorious
periods, which I am calling revival, always do two things. First of
all, they check the decline and apathy which has settled into
the Church and threatens it with extinction. And the second thing
those periods do is they create spiritual momentum which not
only enables the Church to gain back ground that was lost, but
to gain new ground that had never been gained before. And if I
were using a blackboard, which I shan't do, I would draw a rollercoaster-type
line, but there wouldn't be a common base. It would go like this. And God, as it were, pushes the
train of the church and its influence over the hump and down the hill,
and it gathers momentum, and it carries its carloads of blessing
behind it. and it reaches the level part
and begins to lose momentum and then obstacles arise and it starts
up the hill and it loses some of its inertia and it is moving
more slowly until it stops. Then there's the pull of all
these evil forces that begin, like gravity, to pull it back
down the hill until it gains such speed in its backward course
that you think it's going to be dashed in pieces at the bottom,
and then, when it looks like all hope is gone, God puts forth
His arm. He checks that decline. But he
does more than that. He takes the train and he pushes
it up over the hill, and it gathers momentum and is once again able
to carry with it those carloads of blessing which God has treasured
up in his dear and only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus. Jonathan
Edwards said of this very principle, and I quote, God hath had it
much upon his heart from all eternity to magnify his dear
and only begotten Son, To this end He has ordained such times
when He comes forth in unusual might and power to deal with
saint and sinner. Such a time is a day of His power. That's what I mean by using the
term revival, and as we come to this passage, the 44th Psalm,
we want to listen to the voice of the past to the present with
reference to this great issue that should be much upon all
of our hearts. In thinking our way through the
psalm, we shall first of all consider briefly to whom the
voice of the past comes. Then secondly, we shall consider
the nature of the voice of the past. In what form does it come? And then thirdly, the lessons
learned from the voice of the past. And then fourthly, the
personal effects produced by the voice of the past. First of all, then, to whom does
the voice of the past come? This is a very vital principle
in approaching a psalm like this, for one's reaction to any historical
report will be conditioned by the state of the mind and the
circumstances of the person receiving that report. Picture with me
a general who has shared in the fiendish dream of Hitler that
dream of world conquest. He shared that vision from the
rising of the Third Reich on through its initial triumphs
until his mind and spirit have become, as it were, intoxicated
with this fiendish dream. There's our German general, one
of Hitler's right-hand men. Think of a Jew in a prison camp.
who has seen the horrible sight of thousands of his own countrymen
led off to be slaughtered like some beasts that weren't worthy
to cumber the ground. Think of a loyal Londoner who
night after night has known what it is to go down into the tombs
and into the places of shelter. To all three in one day comes
this historical fact. Hitler has died. Same fact of history, but three
entirely different reactions to that fact. And the reaction
conditioned by the state of the person to whom it comes. And
I don't need to work out the differences in those reactions.
I'm sure they're very obvious. So likewise, When the past speaks
to the professing people of God, and when we take the backward
look that the psalmist takes, and when we listen to what our
fathers tell us of the work that God performed in their days,
our reaction to that voice of the past will be conditioned
by the state of our own minds and hearts in the present. And
the reason this psalm was written is because, from the human standpoint,
there was a particular condition of mind and heart resident in
the psalmist that when he heard that report, he reacted in this
particular way. And to summarize the condition
of this man, we could say he was a man obviously in a state
of grace, yea, in a healthy state of grace in the midst of decline
on every hand. How do we know he was in a state
of grace? Well, very briefly. He confesses in verse 4 that
God was his king. Thou art my king, O God. He had known that deep and powerful
operation of the Holy Spirit, subduing his rebel, carnal mind,
and bringing him to embrace from the heart the government of God.
No man can call Jesus Lord. No man can call Jehovah his King,
but by the Holy Ghost. God is the source of his confidence. Verse 6, I will not trust in
my bow, neither shall my sword save me. He had that aspect of
true religion mentioned in Philippians 3. The true circumcision are
they who put no confidence in the flesh. He had learned the
truth of Jeremiah 17 5 that God's curse is upon the man who makes
flesh his arm and whose heart departs from Jehovah. God is
his King. God is his confidence. God is
the object of his praise. Verse 8, in God we boast all
the day long and praise thy name forever. Boasting in God in the
day when it doesn't seem like God's doing anything is risky
business. A man doesn't do that out of
expediency, he does that out of principle. Here's a situation
in which to be identified with the people of God is to be identified
with that which is the song of drunkards, the occasion of blasphemy
and reproach, and yet he says in the midst of this, I boast
in my God. A man is boasting then out of
principle, not out of expediency. He's obviously a man in whose
heart are the highways of Zion, God has wrought a work of grace.
Another thing we discover about this man is that God's name is
a source of tender concern to him. He says in verses 15 and
16, My confusion is continually before me, the shame of my face
hath covered me, for the voice of him that reproacheth and blasphemeth. You see, he's not complaining
that his name has been derided. But the thing that pains him
is that the name of his God is being blasphemed. And when the
pinch is on a person, and there is, as he says later, this situation
of intense persecution, we are like sheep appointed for slaughter.
What a great trial it is as to whether or not a man is particularly
concerned with sparing his own hide, or deeply involved with
the honor of the name of his God. And this man passed the
test. There is this tender concern for the name of God. He's a man
who seeks to walk in the ways of God with sincerity. Verses
17 and 18. All this has come upon us. Our
religious experience has not brought us, as the first spiritual
law says, a wonderful life. It's brought all this upon us.
Yet have we not forgotten thee. Neither have we falsely dealt
in thy covenant. Our heart is not turned back.
Neither have our steps declined from thy ways." Here's a man
who makes tender conscience of walking in the ways of God, when
it looks as though God is not concerned to honor those who
honor Him. That's a man who's a subject
of God, the object of God's special, distinguishing grace. And then
we notice concerning this man, that he has willingly borne hardship
and reproach for the sake of his God, verse 22. For thy sake
we are killed all the day long. And put all of these things together,
the confession that God is his King, his confidence, the object
of his praise, is named the source of tender concern. He seeks to
walk in His ways with tender conscience. He willingly bears
hardship and reproach for the sake of His God. And you ask,
how does a man get that way? There is only one answer. The
grace of God. And how does a man stay that
way in the midst of a situation that is not at all conducive
to spiritual life? He has maintained a healthy state
of soul in the midst of a hostile environment. And this tells me
something, brethren, that no matter how decadent the situation
in our day, no matter how much decline, no matter how fast the
main engine and all of its cars seems to be moving in this direction,
There is grace stored up in our Lord Jesus Christ that you and
I may be individually in a healthy state of grace no matter how
much declension is on every side. And if this report is to do for
us in our judgment and in our affections what it did for Him,
then by God's grace let's take the shortest route to getting
into a healthy state of grace if we're not there. That path
spoken of in James, humble ourselves before our great God. Let our laughter be turned to
mourning and our joy to heaviness. Prostrate ourselves before Him.
Repent and do the first works that we might know a restoration
of our first love. Otherwise the look back may fill
the mind with some notions and it may even touch the affections
with some temporary fleeting aspirations, but that look back
and that look out will not do for us what it did for Him. But if indeed we are in a healthy
state of grace by the grace of God, Then we shall find the truth
of Psalm 111 in verse 2 fulfilled in us. The works of the Lord
are great, sought out of all that have pleasure in them. And with great spiritual relish
we'll look back in order that we might profit in the present. So much then for the person to
whom the voice came. Now consider briefly the nature
of that voice from the past. Verse 1. We have heard with our
ears, O God, our fathers have told us what work thou didst
in their days in the times of old. The nature of that voice
was an unadorned, accurate, historical account of God's past dealings
with his people in the periods of revival. People who were there
and who saw cared enough to magnify God and to strengthen the faith
of the coming generation to tell them what God had done. Now,
whether the psalmist was referring exclusively to the oral tradition,
or whether he is speaking poetically in terms of that which was read
being a tale or being an account that is told, it may be either
or, it may be both, but in any case, It was an accurate historical
account of God's past dealings. Just as the psalmist had reason
to be grateful that someone cared enough to take time to remember
and to pass on the account, so you and I should thank God again
and again for that record left to us in Scripture of those times
when God has arrested the train and has pushed it up over the
next hill and then tells us what happened as it gained momentum
and God's name was glorified and the Lord Jesus was given
a fuller measure of the travail of his soul. We should be grateful
to God for those men who in the midst of unusual blessing after
the closing of the canon were not so irresponsible as to fail
to record what God had done and they've left the record for us. Perhaps the best way some of
us could serve our own generation is to stop serving long enough
to know what God has done in past generations. For one of
the great blights upon the Church in America and here in the British
Isles is the absence of historical perspective amongst the people
of God and amongst Christ's ministering servants. Oh yes, I know. I'm fully aware that there is
the danger of an indifferent antiquarianism. Just withdrawing
to know what God did and making that an excuse for involvement
with present need. I'm fully aware of that. But
there is on the other end of the spectrum an irresponsible
contemporaneity. so concerned about the now that
we act as though God never said anything or did anything in the
past and has no lessons to teach us. For as the river of Christian
grace and life and the church in its involvement with the world
and its ministry, as that river comes by our feet, it did not
originate at our feet. It originated up there in the
mountains of the past and the streams that flowed into it.
And that river is rich with lessons for us as the people of God. And so that report is here for
us in Scripture. It's available to us in the books
that we have at our disposal. And we are something less than
being responsible servants of Christ unless we expose our minds
and hearts to that voice of the past. Now we come to the core
and the heart of this psalm, and what I trust will be the
Lord's word to our hearts, the lessons learned by this voice
of the past. This historical record comes
to a man in a healthy state of grace. It comes in the form of
an accurate report of what God has done. Now, what lessons did
he learn? Well, the lessons he learned
were basically two. He learned, first of all, some
very elementary principles as to the nature of revival, and
then secondly, he learned some things about the need for revival
in his own day. What did he learn about the nature
of revival as the fathers told him of the mighty works that
God had done in their day? Well, he learned three things.
First of all, he learned who the author was. Then he learned
what the essence of revival was, and then he learned what the
cause was. Who was the author? Well, in the first three verses,
there are no fewer than eight pronouns referring to God. It's almost as though he were
redundant. If he had passed this in, to
his grammar school teacher as some kind of an essay she would
have scribbled in red pencil at the top, redundant. Listen to the emphasis. We have
heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us what work
thou didst in their days, how thou didst drive out the heathen
with thy hand, how thou didst deflict the people, for they
got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did
their own arms save them, but thy right hand and thine arm
and the light of thy countenance, because thou hast a favor unto
them. The first lesson he learned as
to the nature of revival was that it was a mighty work of
the living God. Now I have no doubt but what
the names of Moses, Joshua, Aaron, David, and others were involved
in that report But he learned this lesson, that what happened
could not ultimately be explained in terms of David's military
genius, in terms of Joshua's military acumen. It could not
be explained any other way than this, God had taken the field
and bared his arm. Human instruments, yes, but they
were but instruments. Clever battle plans, yes. The
energy of soldiers, yes. David's sword dripping with blood,
yes. Joshua's garments spattered with
the blood of Canaanites, yes. But through all of this, he learned
this most fundamental lesson that those glorious periods in
the history of the Church have as their author, the Living God. He has come. and He has taken
the field. As one has said in commenting
on this verse, the warriors of Israel were not inactive, but
their valor was secondary to that mysterious divine working
in which Jericho's walls fell down and the hearts of the heathen
failed them for fear. As you and I study the history
of God's dealings And especially as our hearts are drawn to the
instruments used, we can so subtly begin to think that really God
did what He did because of Whitefield's zeal. And so we can't expect
God to do that because there's no one with the zeal of the Whitefield
on the scene. Oh, God raise up the Whitefield.
We begin to think that way. The answer is not in Whitefield's
zeal. It's not in Brainerd's tender compassion. It's not in
Wesley's indefatigable labors, if I may mention him at this
conference. It is not in McShane's holy life and his beautiful simplicity
and the answers not even found in Jonathan Edwards' God-centered
theology. The answer is God was pleased
to bear his arm. There may be a thousand diamonds,
bigger and more potentially beautiful than the Hope Diamond, but they're
known only to God. And there may be men who were
as astute in their theological understanding as a Jonathan Edwards,
as prayerful as a Brainerd, as zealous as a Whitefield, whom
God has hidden. tucked away in some little place
and it never pleased him to give them the wide sphere of influence
and I believe we're going to have many surprises in that day. The answer is not Whitfield's
zeal. Ultimately, it was God laid hold
of a man to make him that instrument. We should emulate his zeal, yes.
Emulate Brainerd's compassion. Emulate McShane's holy life and
beautiful simplicity. But if in any way we begin to
feel, unless these things come, we can't see the mighty day of
God's power. Or we begin to feel, if we in
some measure attain to those graces, God must use us. We have
forgotten this first lesson. The cause of those mighty periods
was the breaking forth, the author was God breaking forth in power. As we believe that and as that
principle permeates our spirits, then our prayers will be weaned
from all hope in man. And if we begin to see someone
appear on the horizon who seems to have unusual gifts and graces,
we're not going to begin to subtly pin our hopes there. Our expectations
will be weaned from all secondary causes. We won't feel, well,
God just must visit us, because look at all the Calvinist he's
making. And your confidence is in doctrine
instead of the God who's reflected in that truth. And then when
God does come, if we've really believed this, and we've acted
and prayed in the light of it, then the reflex action of our
hearts is unto Him, and to Him alone be the glory, the honor,
and the majesty forever and forever. Well, there was a second lesson
this man learned from the voice of the past. Not only did he
learn that God was the author of revival, but that as to its
nature, its essence, revival is a work of judgment and of
mercy. Verse 2. How thou didst drive
out the heathen, judgment, plantest them, mercy. Thou didst afflict
the people, that is, the Gentiles, and, as I said better translated,
them thou didst spread abroad, You see the contrast? Judgment
and mercy driving out, planting, afflicting, spreading abroad. And this pattern is seen in Israel
literally and geographically. God literally drove out Canaanites,
planted Israelites in that piece of real estate over there in
the Middle East. But in every revival, God has
done this spiritually and vitally in the church. You see it in
the book of Acts. Is He adding 3,000? He's also slaying an Ananias
and Sapphira. Is the Lord adding daily, such
as should be saved? At the same time, no man dares
join himself to them. And in every period when God
has come forth in power, revival is seen to be in its essence,
a work both of judgment and of mercy. Is God about to deliver
His people from Egyptian bondage? Then death must come to the firstborn
and to an entire army. Is God going to plant His people
in Canaan? Then Canaanites are slain by
the thousands. And so this pattern follows.
God scatters His enemies, lays low the opposers of His people,
and magnifies and glorifies His own Son. If you and I really
believe this, then we shall not have longings for revival which
are marked by mere sentimental romanticism. Wouldn't it be nice
to have God visit us? The scripture says, by terrible
things in righteousness thou wilt answer us. Speaking one time with someone
who was in close fellowship with another individual who had been
in the midst of one of these days of God's power. Perhaps
not so extensive as the revivals we think have, but nonetheless,
a time when God was putting forth His hand to check that decline
and to create new momentum. And as this individual was talking
to my friend and sharing with him something of what God did
in those days, he was doing this, you see, giving a report of what
God had done. My friend, who's quite outgoing
and very expressive, burst into this account and said, my, it
must have been great to preach in days like that. They turned
to him and said, my friend, we didn't want to preach. We wanted
to hide. We wanted to hide. For it was
the presence of God among us. That God of whom Paul speaks
in Corinthians when he says, if the unbeliever comes amongst
you and God is present in your midst, he falling down upon his
face will cry out, God is of a truth among you. The consciousness
that all things are naked and open before that eye and that
sin stands under his judgment. Every revival has produced in
some measure a preview of the day of judgment, both to the
saint and to the sinner. No wonder sometimes people trembled
physically and fell prostrate. It will only be the supportive
power of a resurrected body that will enable men to stand erect
at the judgment bar. When God gives them a little
sight of it now, it swallows them up. And so as we think of
revival, it's a work of judgment upon sin in the hearts of God's
people. Judgment must begin at the house
of God, but blessed be God. It is a work of mercy when God
is pleased to visit His people who have entered that state of
decline for their own carelessness and because of their own indifference
and spiritual barrenness and they deserve nothing from God
but for the natural processes to continue to work until the
church is extinct. But God in mercy, true to His
covenant promises, breaks forth in power and He shows mercy to
His people and mercy to sinners. But he learned a third thing
as to the nature of revival. Not only was it a mighty work
of God, its author, a work of judgment and mercy, its essence,
but he learned something about its cause. It was a sovereignly
gracious work of God. Why did all this happen? He tells
us in the end of verse 3. Because thou hast a favor unto
them, or as the revised version has it, because thou wast favorable
to them. As he listens to this report,
and he knows something of the history of God's people, He draws
this conclusion. There's only one reason why God
would have ever intervened and once again turned back the powers
of darkness and the forces of evil. Only one reason why He
would have driven out those Canaanites and planted His people. And only
one reason. He knew enough of the history
of Israel to know of their murmurings in the wilderness. He knew enough
of their unfaithfulness, of their sin, of their defection from
God. And he said, there's only one
reason God was favorable to them. This was a sovereignly gracious
disposition of God. It was not because they were
worthy, because they had prayed long enough, because they had,
quote, paid the price or met the conditions. No. God was favorably
disposed to rise up and to defend His own cause for the glory and
honor of his own name. I'm sure you see by way of application
how necessary it is that this principle burn its way into our
hearts. There is current in our day still
the curse of the philosophy of Charles Finney. Meet these conditions
and push the button, revival will come. R. A. Torrey carried
on that very philosophy and has become part of the warp and woof
of much of evangelical thinking. With the result that men's eyes
are fixed on man, men's hopes are pinned on man, and if there
is a little stirring, all the glory goes to man or to method. But this same kind of thinking
can be seen in our circles. I gave a little hint of it earlier.
Well, I've become a Calvinist. Now revival must come. As though
the fact that I have been brought to understand a little bit more
of God's truth means that God is obligated. to come and visit. No, if God visits His people
in any age, there is but one reason. He is sovereignly disposed
in grace to thus visit them for the honor of His own name. David
Brainerd said of that first outpouring of the Spirit after three years
of intense labor, When the Spirit of God came like a rushing wind
upon those fifty Indians when preaching through a half-drunken
interpreter, when I had least cause to expect it, God came. When I had least cause to expect
it, God came. Pentecost is the specimen outpouring. Suddenly, without announcement,
there came from heaven. That's it. Suddenly, from heaven. a gracious and sovereign disposition
of God. Well, that's the first thing
that he learned. He learned those three great
lessons about the nature of revival. Now the second thing he learned
from this report was the desperate need for revival in his own day. One of the most effective ways
of learning is to conduct a study in contrasts. And this is what
he does. He hears the report coming to
him But then he declares in verse 9, But thou hast cast off and
put us to shame, and goest not forth with our armies. Oh God,
our fathers have told us, when they went out, you went with
them. It was thy hand upholding, thine arm empowering, the light
of thy countenance encouraging and strengthening. But when we
go out, we're all alone. You don't go forth with us. Because
of it, what happens? You make us to turn back from
the enemy. They that hate us spoil for themselves. We're not only defeated, we're
then ransacked by our enemies. He says, you've treated us just
like sheep that are no longer good for giving wool, and we're
all ready for the slaughterhouse. You've scattered us among the
heathen. You've sold us for nothing. You don't even increase the change
in your pocket. What a vivid picture. God, you
sell us for nothing. You're not even enriched by what
happens. Thou makest us a byword. All of these evidences of declension. You see, he looked back, listened
to the report, then he looked out, and there was this glaring
contrast. Inability to conquer. Cast off
by God. A reproach among the nations.
A lack of cohesion. And he concluded, this is not
par for the course. He learned his own desperate
need for revival in his own day because of that voice from the
past. And this is why we need to listen
to the voice of the past, for it's calculated to convince us
of our need for the Lord to put forth His arm in our own day. Try to picture with me an island
isolated from the rest of humanity, Which, for some freakish reason,
in the whole genetic structure of the people who live on that
island, it's impossible, I know, from a genetic standpoint, but
I'm using it for the sake of illustration. Everyone born of
the people on that island only had four fingers on the right
hand. And only one eye. Just a cyclops,
right smack in the middle. And so when a little baby's born,
he looks up into his one-eyed mama's face, And she puts her
arm around him with that right hand. It's a four-fingered hand.
He accepts this as normalcy. And he gets a little older and
goes out to play with his playmates. They all look at one another
with their one eye. And they pick up a ball and throw it,
if they're right-handed, with their four fingers. And they're
never concerned about it. Life goes on perfectly normal.
One eye, four fingers. Then the day comes when someone
on that isolated island gets in a boat and makes a trip and
finds land. And lo and behold, he's shocked.
Talk about culture shock. For the first person to greet
him is a freak. Has two eyes. And when he reaches
out his hand to express greetings, why, there's an extra piece of
flesh stuck on it. And he's shocked by this. He
can't understand this. Until he's taken back into his
village, and lo and behold, the village is full of freaks. Two
eyes. Five fingers on the head. he
finally gets over the shock enough to disclose his concern and ask
what's wrong with all the people in this place they aren't right
there's something wrong with them and the man tries to explain
to him no no this is the way all normal human no no it can't
be it can't be all the people i've ever seen have one eye and
four fingers this can't be normal see so he gets on a jet plane
with him and he flies over to another country and he shows
him the team in the metropolis areas and the thousands and millions
of people all of them that way takes them to another land until
finally he's convinced they're not the freaks we are. Dear brethren, it's perfectly
possible for us in this generation, when there perhaps have been
some unusual days of God's power in little localized situations
or in other places of the world, but by and large, our generation
in the Western world has been bypassed. And we have been born
spiritually and brought up spiritually in a climate of one-eyed, four-fingered
monsters. Do you follow me? And we can begin to accept as
normalcy this humdrum round of three sermons a week and our
prayerless prayer meetings and our lack of perception and
sensitivity of the purpose and plan of God, and the deadness
and coldness of our own hearts and our own assemblies, and as
long as the bills are paid, and as long as we are getting enough
increase in salary to keep up with the cost of living, and
as long as the deacons are functioning and the elders are doing a passable
job, then you know all the Lord expects is faithfulness, and
we hide behind that canopy in our indifference. And I don't
say this to be unkind. But I say it is a plea. You and
I need constantly to get on the boat and go to lands where people
are normal. And if we can't possibly find
such places in our day to go and see what the church is like
when it's throbbing with the life of the Spirit of God, when
God is in the midst and God's people are alive and awake and
full of zeal and passion and holy fire, then for all reasons,
let's go on back and take the boat back into history and let
our fathers tell us what work was done in their days. As we
read of those days of the right hand of the Most High, when the
Spirit has been poured forth, and when the hardest of hearts
have been melted by the onrush of the fire of God, and when
the church that has been moribund and half-dead has suddenly come
alive like the bones there in the Valley of Vision, then we
see what true normalcy is. And our hearts begin to burn
within us and we cry out, Oh God, do it again. And we need
to do this constantly, brethren. I know we should not despise
the day of small things, but neither should we be content
with the day of small things. And this man found that by listening
to the voice of the past, he saw the desperate need for revival
in his own day. But now, everything that happened
here was primarily notional. It was in the realm of the understanding,
and that's only right. That's where God begins His work.
He addresses His truth to the mind and to the judgment. God
never barnstorms the affections first, or the will first. He
comes with light and illumination to the mind. But may I say, God
never intends that His work should stop there. And it didn't stop
with this man. He got some fresh light in his
judgment. As he listened to that report, he saw something. He
saw something about the nature of revival. It was a sovereign
work of God. It was a work of judgment and
mercy. A work rooted in a disposition of grace. He saw something of
his own need for an outpouring of the blessing of God. But he
also, and this brings us to our fourth point tonight, he also
experienced some personal effects. Something happened in the realm
of his affections, in the realm of his will, in the realm of
his actions. May I briefly, and I can only
be suggested in going through, and I can't expand these as I
would like to, but I trust that going through all of them will
give us a framework for our praying. and that this psalm perhaps will
be much more instrumental in our own lives in provoking us
to pray for the visitation of God in mercy. What were the personal
effects produced by this report? He learned some lessons, he experienced
some effects. First of all, we find the first
effect in verse 4, what I'm calling spontaneous ejaculations of desire. He's going along telling about
this report. You drove out the heathen with
your hand. They got not the land in possession
by their own sword, neither did their own arms save them. Thy
right hand, thine arm, and before he knows it, he suddenly finds
his heart spontaneously, almost by reflex action, turning away
from history and saying, Thou art my King, O God. Command deliverances
for Jacob. Do something now. You see, he
wasn't the insensitive antiquarian. off there studying his historical
poems. No, no. No, no. Here was a man
in a healthy state of grace, and as he hears what God did,
suddenly he finds himself looking up. Oh, God! Do it again. Do
it again. Let me ask you, can you pick
up the life of Whitefield and just read that as history and
not find after a few pages you've got to close it and get on your
knees and say, oh, God, to see but one hour of that? Can you
just sort of rock along, read through that, so the next time
you go to a minister's meeting and they say, oh, have you read
Whitfield? Oh, yes, I just... You know, we're subtle, aren't we,
my preacher friends? We love to pride ourselves that
we're well-read, so that when the name of a book comes up,
we can say, very humbly, of course, oh, yes, yes, I've read that.
Yes, we've read it. But has it done for us what the
report did for this man? Do we find ourselves pausing
in the midst of pages with these spontaneous ejaculations of desire? Oh God, do it again. You're the
same. If you choose to exercise your
sovereign power, if you'll be disposed to us in grace and in
mercy, once more you can shake the nations and make your church
to be bright as the sun, fair as the moon, terrible as an army
with banners. If the life of God is within
us, We can no more hear that voice of the past dispassionately
than a true patriot can stand in the midst of his nation in
a time of declension and bondage and have someone tell him about
the days of his nation's conquest. His patriotic heart burns and
he cries out, let it be done again. The second effect it had upon
him, it brought a resolute affirmation of his confidence in Verses 5
and 6, a resolute affirmation of his confidence in God. Verse
5, a general affirmation. Through thee will we push down
our enemies. He's talking about the people
of God in general. Through thy name will we tread
them under that rise up against us. But then he makes it personal.
For I will not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me. Here is a man who, looking back,
seeing what God has done, seeing his mighty power and operation
in dealing with formidable enemies, having looked out and seen his
own enemies and acknowledged his great need, he resolutely
affirms his confidence in this same God. Through thee we will
yet push down our enemies. And he hadn't seen one of them
fall, but he says they're going to fall. He hadn't tread down
underfoot one of them. He says, we will yet do it. We
will yet do it. The cause of God, the glory of
His name, the honor of His own covenantal promises, all bound
up in this. We will yet tread down our enemies. God is not going to allow the
train to go back and back and be dashed to pieces and have
the whole thing come to naught. God will yet put forth His arm
and arrest the decline, give new momentum and enable us to
trample underfoot. the very enemies that in this
moment are spoiling our goods. Our New Testament tells us this
is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. And if our confidence in God
is genuine, it will lead us to do the very thing that this man
did. He says, God, I am so confident that this is your work, And I
am resolutely affirming my confidence in that that I'm consciously
repudiating any other thing. I will not trust in my bow, neither
shall my sword save me. And brethren, if we have been
brought to that place, we will consciously repudiate the arm
of flesh in principle and in practice. This idea, well, it's
all right, be a Calvinist on your knees and in your study,
but if you're going to get things done, you've got to be an Arminian
on your feet. No, no. If I am a true biblical Calvinist
upon my knees, I say, God, only thou canst do what must be done. And then when I get up on my
feet, I say, God, because only you can do it, and you know how
best to do your work, I will labor only with those means that
you have ordained. And I will refuse to play games
with thee, and ask thy blessing upon means that are dishonoring
to you. I won't tamper with the message
to make it palatable to men. I won't invent methods that are
contrary to the precepts and principles and precedents of
the Word of God. Know that confidence that suffuses
through the spirit of a man in the presence of God. Through
thee we will push down our enemies confident that they don't get
pushed down by his sword. He doesn't go out trying to make
and forge clever little swords and some kind of new bow to slay
the enemy. He recognizes that the weapons
of his warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the
pulling down of strongholds. And so I believe we're warranted
to say by way of application that all professed longing for
revival that is not coupled with a clear repudiation in the present
tense of all God dishonoring means and methods, all that longing
is sheer mockery. Sheer mockery. In the midst of
declension, he says, I'm boasting in God. And people would say,
where is your God? He'd say, well, we don't see His workings
yet, but we will. Well, what are you going to do in the meantime?
What have you got to show? And he was willing to say, nothing,
but the hour is coming when we will tread down our adversaries.
And brethren, I know the pressures on us. There's that fellow down
the street. with all his clever, slick methods
of corralling people into decisions, and all his three-ring circus
to keep people in church and to build up big Sunday night
congregations, and he hears there's something actually alive down
the street called a Calvinist. He thought they'd died out with
the Goonie Bird. He just doesn't believe they
still exist. And the time comes when you meet each other, And
you begin to talk about your theology and about your concern
for God's glory. And sooner or later, he says,
and my brother, how many conversions have you seen this past year?
You hang your head. You say, we haven't seen any.
Well, we've taken in 45 members. You see the pragmatic argument
and the pressures then on you say, what are you going to do?
You're going to go back to your closet and say, God, we shall
yet push down our adversaries. But I will not trust in my bow.
I will not trust in my sword. I repudiate all methods and means
that are dishonoring to you, God. I'll stick with your weapons
until you're pleased to make them the instrument of victory. And I believe we're at a point
now in the history of God's dealings in our own generation where it's
this very issue to use the colloquial expression that's separating
the men from the boys. If you've latched onto Calvinistic
thought simply because you thought, well, Arminianism hasn't worked,
maybe this will work, you'll get rid of it before long. If
you've come to that view of God and His truth called Calvinism
because God, the Holy Spirit, has illuminated your mind to
see that this is indeed the truth of Scripture, then you say, if
I must die in the midst of the rubble of a decadent church,
I'll die boasting in my God all the day long. That's what this
man says. In God we boast. What have you
got to boast about? You're running before your enemies.
They're spoiling you. You're being sold like sheep
all the day long. You're saying, what are you boasting
about? I'm boasting about my great God. My fathers have told
me what he did. And I'm confident he's not through. And we will yet push down our
adversaries. Oh, may God bring us to that place of resolute
affirmation of our confidence in God. That report not only
produced these spontaneous cries to the Lord, this resolute affirmation
of faith, but notice in the third place, it produced in his heart
genuine contrition over the present state. Verses 15 and 16. Having
described, beginning with verse 9 to 14, the terrible state of
his own day, he says, My confusion is continually before me, and
the shame of my face hath covered me. For the voice of him that
reproacheth and blasphemeth by reason of the enemy and the avenger,
here is a man experiencing genuine contrition over the present state
of the people of God. He could not compare the past
with the present and see the need in his own hour without
a baptism of holy sorrow. Brethren, I am convicted when
I can say so glibly. Isn't the church in bad shape?
If we can say that without a sob in the heart, God have mercy
on us. The church is the apple of His eye. It's to be the reflector
of His glory. And when it isn't reflecting
His glory as it ought, how it must grieve His heart, and it
ought to grieve ours. And when you read those great
revival prayers, Ezra 9, Nehemiah 9, Daniel 9, the mark of every
one of those prayers, is this genuine contrition that so grips
them that the three holiest men in each of those situations,
as far as we know, the men who least needed to be broken, we
find them praying, not they, Lord, have done this and they
have done that, but they cry out, confusion hath covered my
face. We have sinned. We have departed. We have declined. They identify
themselves in that circumstance in true contrition. I know only
God can break our hearts, but I know God also says, Rend your
heart and not your garment. And the principle is no different
there than when we tell dead sinners, You must repent! Yet
we know they won't unless God moves them. So what do we do?
Stop telling them they must? Sit back and do nothing? No!
We seek to deprive them with every legitimate scriptural motive
as we heard in the earlier hour. The dread of hell and the fear
of the torments to come, the glories of heaven, The glories
of a Redeemer, yet knowing with all of this, unless God quickens
them, there'll be no movement toward Him. So it is with us.
Yes, God works in us, both to will and to do of His good pleasure,
but that follows hard on the heels of a command to work out.
So how can we break our own hearts? We can't. You know, God says
you must. And so we say, Lord, I must, but I can't. That means
I'm going to get down on my knees and I'm going to call out to
You. to do what I know must be done, but I can't do. God give
me a baptism of genuine contrition and true godly sorrow. There's an irresponsible giddiness
in the church, and the church was never happyfied into this
state of revival. As we look from these low, boggy
lands of decadence to those plateaus of spiritual blessing, It's only
one way from here to there, and you read about it in James 4.
It's down into that valley of contrition and humiliation. James
says that your laughter returned to mourning, your joy to weeping,
humble yourselves in the sight of God, and He will lift you
up. May the Lord be pleased to bring
us to that state, even in these days, not of an affected, pharisaical,
beard-growing kind of humility. No, no. The Lord says they have
their reward. But the kind of thing that'll tip the scales,
brethren, that when we get in one another's rooms or out in
the hallways, and the conversation, you know, can slip from the edifying
into the critical and into the foolish, that there'll be enough
sensitivity for someone to say, brethren, can't we take a few
minutes and go pray together? What would happen if here and
there, little groups drifting off to cry to God? I tell you, the thought of this,
as I've anticipated this conference, has both frightened me and thrilled
me, if God would bring us to that stage. We must take the
lead, and if our people won't weep over their decadence, we
must weep for them. If they'll not experience godly
sorrow, we must for them. But then there was a fourth thing
that happened by way of a practical effect. Notice it in verses 17
to 19. It's what I'm calling He committed
himself to a careful adherence to the path of present duty.
Notice. All this has come upon us, all
the decadence, all the evidences of God's frown, yet have we not
forgotten thee? Neither have we dealt falsely
in thy covenant. Our heart is not turned back.
Neither have our steps declined from thy ways, though thou hast
sore broken us in the place of dragons and covered us with the
shadow of death. You see what he's saying? He's
saying, in the midst of all this decadence, we have sought to
walk in careful adherence to the path of present duty. If
God is God and we're His children, He is to be obeyed by the gracious
soul regardless of the state of the church. We're bound to
our prophet, priest, and king. Even though no blessing comes
that we can discern, He's worthy of obedience. And blessing, if
it comes, God says, comes in the path of obedience to present
duty. John 14, 21. He that hath my
commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me. And
he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love
him, and manifest myself to him. That is in the path of obedience.
Acts 5.32. We are witnesses, and so also
is the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them, that obey him.
And again, this is an issue that separates the men from the boys
in this area. In the area of evangelism, we
say, yes, we've got a responsibility to take the gospel to every creature,
but the Lord would send revival and God's people are all so alive
that the message just spills out. In the meantime, when we
read about the apostle making conscience of going house to
house to preach the word, Acts 20, When we read in Acts 17 that
He actually went into the marketplace and we get disturbed about this
whole matter of carrying out our evangelistic task, even though
there is no general outpouring, how easy it is to just shift
it off and make our longing for revival an excuse for present
scriptural evangelistic outreach. How easy it is in the area of
discipline. Is there anybody here that delights in discipline?
When you see that that member has been absent for three or
four weeks, do you like to go to them and find out what's wrong
and admonish them? And if they show no repentance,
then in a couple of months to place them under some form of
discipline? Do you like that? Anybody here that likes that
awful sticky work of discipline? No. None of us does. And how
easy it is to say, well, I know that I ought to go after this
brother, that sister, this professing one, but, Lord, if you'd only
send revival and they'd get quick and wouldn't have to, Lord. You
see, and we can make our longings for revival a substitute for
present obedience in the midst of present light and grace. How
many parents do this with the matter of the training and discipline
of their children, with the catechizing and instruction of their children?
You can work out the other areas. He said in the midst of all this
declension, If God is God and I claim to be his servant, I
will stick to the path of duty even though it looks as though
God is frowning. Then the next thing it led to,
it led to honest searching of heart. Verses 20 and 21. If we have forgotten the name
of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange God. Shall
not God search this out? For he knoweth the secrets of
the heart." Here's a man who looks up and says, God, as far
as I know, there's no area of conscious, deliberate refusal
of your claims, but who can know his heart? Who can know his faults? After he's made diligent search,
he says, God, my spiritual eyesight's poor, but yours is perfect. You
know the secrets of the heart. Now, Lord, You take up where
I've left off. I've looked and I don't see the
area of conscious disobedience, but Lord, I can only see on the
surface. You know the secrets. Search
out. Search out. And when you and
I begin to honestly cry to God for a visitation of mercy and
try to stick with it longer than the enthusiasm that comes in
a conference like this, you know invariably what happens. We begin
to ask ourselves, is the cause of declension in me? And when anyone begins to persevere
in prayer, it isn't long before he experiences the deepest searching
of heart known to the child of God. You cannot persevere in
prayer without this honest searching of heart. May God grant that our listening
to the voice of the past will bring us to that honest searching
of heart. And then the last thing it did,
and with this we close tonight, it brought him to a place of
earnest pleading with God for the visitations of judgment and
mercy which they needed. Notice his prayer. Awake, why
sleepest thou, O Lord? Verse 23. Arise, cast us not
off forever. Then he reasons with God, Wherefore
hidest thou thy face, and forgettest our affliction and our oppression?
For our soul is bowed down to the dust, and our belly cleaveth
unto the earth. Arise for our help, and redeem
us for thy mercy's sake. Notice the nature of that pleading.
It was bold pleading. Doesn't this almost sound impotent?
A creature telling God to rise up. Saying, God, it's as though
you're asleep. We'd think someone brash if we
heard them pray that way, wouldn't we? Arise! Why sleepest thou,
O God? Very similar to the prayer of
Psalm 74, 11, where the psalmist prays, God, pluck thy hand out
of thy bosom. It's as though God looks at the
field of the situation, and all he needs to do is bear his arm,
but he's hiding his arm, and the psalmist prays, Pluck thy
hand out of thy bosom. Isaiah prayed, rend the heavens,
and come down, bold praying. But remember, it came from a
heart that was pleading to be searched, that was adhering to
the path of present duty, that was boldly confessing its confidence
in God. You see, it's not any old heart
in any old state that can pray this way. This prayer comes at
the end, and it flows out of a heart. that has been brought
into that state. It's bold pleading. It's importunate
pleading. Here's repetition, but not the
vain repetition of the heathen, who think that by multiplying
words they somehow construct a battering ram that breaks down
reluctance in the heart of God. But this is the pleading of intense
desire. Awake! Why sleepest thou? Arise! Arise for our help! importunate
prayer, the kind of prayer our Lord encourages in Luke 11, in
the parable of the friend whose friend came to him at midnight
and he had nothing to set before him, the parable of the unjust
judge, and then last of all it was prayer that was rooted in
the character of God. Notice he closes his prayer with
this, and redeem us for thy mercy's sake. You've revealed yourself
as a God of mercy. And I find in that disposition
of mercy a handle which my faith can take hold of. You see, when
a man's pleading for blessing in a state of decadence, he doesn't
take comfort from the holiness of God. If he thinks upon God's
holiness, that'll make him despair. If God is so holy and I am so
sinful, what hope is there that He'll bless me? But the attribute
of God That is the attribute which becomes the handle of faith
in a state of declension in sin is His mercy, His lovingkindness. That's the attribute David took
hold of in the 51st Psalm. Have mercy upon me, O God, according
to Thy lovingkindness. Oh, how it should fill us! at
least with some measure of faith and expectation to realize that
God's mercy has not been exhausted by all the sin and failure in
our own lives and in the church in this present hour. There's
an infinite ocean of mercy treasured up in the heart of our God, funneled
to us through the purchased blessings of Jesus Christ, and showered
down upon us by the mighty operations of the Holy Spirit. May God bring
us to a place of earnest pleading for these visitations of judgment
and mercy, pleading that is bold, importunate, rooted in the revealed
character of God. The voice of the past to the
present. May God help us to hear that
voice, that we with the psalmist will learn more clearly the nature
of revival. We'll feel more deeply our need
of revival and then be moved to spontaneous cries of desire,
this resolute affirmation of faith, be brought to a state
of contrition, careful adherence to His ways, openness to be searched,
pleading with Him. And who knows, as Joel says,
whether the Lord will repent and leave a blessing behind Can
anyone produce any promise in the Word of God or any statement
that says God's mercy has been exhausted? That He designs no
more days of His power? Who knoweth? And it's been repeated
to the point where perhaps it's almost trite, but it's true.
When the old man was asked how bright were the prospects for
a day of mercy, he said, as bright as the promises of God. May God
help us to lay hold of those promises. Let us pray.