Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to Psalm 23. We'll read from
our text, verse 3. He restoreth my soul, he leadeth
me in the paths of righteousness, for his name's sake. Psalm 23 and verse 3. David knew what it was to be
a shepherd. He knew what it was when a sheep
had gone astray, what it was to bring it back. He knew very
clearly that it was not the sheep that restored itself, It was
not the sheep that brought itself back, however much he might have
called it, however much he might have allured it, yet he, the
shepherd, needed to go and restore that sheep out of the ditch where
it was, out of the place where it was caught, and bring it back
again into the flock and under his rod. He knew that. He knew
also what it was in a spiritual way, and to be able to say in
the opening of this psalm, the Lord is my shepherd. And in our text, to clearly state,
He restoreth my soul. We do not know when this psalm
was written, But if it was written after David's fall, after he
had penned Psalm 51 that we read together, that clear psalm of
repentance and godly sorrow for his sin of adultery and then
murder, we would know that he himself would be able to testify
as our text, he, restoreth my soul. David, though he sinned,
so greatly was restored, and was recovered, and it was God's
doing." In the context here then, I believe
that the main emphasis is towards those that have been called and
quickened by divine grace and then that they have gone astray,
they've wandered this way or that, or maybe not just outwardly,
just maybe in thought, in their affections, and maybe like the
churches that are written to in the Revelation, that have
left their first love, or those that are not again, not still
contending for the faith, they've gone out of the narrow way and
attending to the broad way. I believe that is the principal
context here and noteth the words of our text. It doesn't say,
He restored my soul. It doesn't say, He will restore
my soul. He says, he restoreth my soul. Or in the process of restoring. And really it is an ongoing situation. If we only got a look at the
children of Israel, how that they again and again went away
from the Lord and then were brought back. If we look at Psalm 107,
again and again, they, through their foolishness, they fell
down, there was none to help, they cried unto the Lord, and
He delivered them out of their distresses. The psalmist there
would say that it was He restoreth my soul. But I want to, before
we look more carefully at it in this way, I want to think
of the soul and its need of restoring. This is not a person. It is not the outward being.
It is not someone that is fallen from favour and then restored
to favour. It is not the butler in Joseph's
case that was put in prison and out of favour with Pharaoh brought
back and restored to his butlership. This is not outward, this is
the soul. This is that part of man that
the Lord says, fear not those that kill the body. And after
that, there's no more they can do, but fear him with power to
cast both body and soul into hell. And so the soul is that
which is the eternal, part of us that began at our conception
and shall never ever cease to exist, whether in heaven or in
hell. The eternal nature of the soul,
made in the image of God, an eternal being. The soul is of
utmost value, and it is vital that our souls be right But when
we think of how we were in the fall, God made us and made our
bodies and our souls upright, and in His image in every way,
except His eternity, except His attributes of all-knowing, omniscience,
being everywhere, the Lord has not bestowed those attributes
upon man. But he was given the dominion
here below, and he was given that ability to have communion
and fellowship with God, to be made in true holiness, and to
be able to know the things of God, having a rational mind and
an understanding. And yet all those things were
taken away in the fall, in the day that thou eatest thereof
thou shalt surely die. And now we know that the natural
man, it understandeth, it knoweth, it cannot know the things of
God. They are spiritually disowned.
Clearly, we are spiritually dead. And that is the sentence of God
upon us. We are under condemnation. You read the opposite in Romans
8, there is therefore now no condemnation that are in Christ
Jesus, but a soul by nature is lost. It is ruined in the fall. It is without hope, without God
in the world. All we like sheep have gone astray. That is the condition of our
souls. And so the same One that is spoken
of here as restoring the soul in this context is always the
restorer. He is the one that calls the
people out of nature's darkness and into his marvellous light.
He is the one that gives faith in the beginning. He is the author
and finisher of our faith. He is the one that then keeps
us through life He is the one at death that shall take that
soul from its mortal tabernacle and shall bring it to Himself.
And then at the resurrection, He is the one that shall restore
all things, that shall restore that soul to a new body, a celestial
body, and restore the whole creation that groaneth and travaileth
in pain together until now. bringing in a new heaven and
a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. The Lord shall
completely restore, perfectly in better condition than it was
before, all of his creation, and all of his people, lost and
ruined in the fall, will be restored to glory and to be with him forever. We often have pictures on earth
of what it is to restore something. You may have all seen a picture
of a car that has been found in a barn, and it has been there
for years and years, and the paintwork is all mud, and it's
all covered in dust, and there's rust spots everywhere, and then
much work has been done to restore it. And there you see it in gleaming
paint and chrome, running and working just like it was brand
new. It has been restored. It has
taken many years of painstaking, careful work by a restorer. And that car has been passive
in it all. It has had no part in it whatsoever. It's not had no hand in it, not
in finding it. It's been found. Not in its being
restored and brought to its former glory. It's had no part in it,
but it's been the subject of it. And there's been a person
that's had the skill and the ability and understanding to
restore it. And we may have seen many other
things as well that have been need of restoring. Perhaps a
piano or an organ or something else that has shown much signs
of wear and deterioration and yet they have been restored again
to what they were. And so this then is the picture
that is before us and it is specifically the context in which the text
says he restoreth as an ongoing thing. If David was just referring
to his call by grace, quickening, he would say he restored my soul. If he is just thinking of the
resurrection and that which is to come, he would say that he
will restore my soul. But he is speaking of in a present
condition, And we read in the Word that they that have no changes
fear not God. And God's people, they know they
do have changes. Sometimes hot, sometimes cold. Sometimes they're far off from
the Lord. Sometimes they wander. Sometimes
they're very hard-hearted. Sometimes they're very fearful.
Many places that God's people get into. So David is speaking
of that which He's going on, really, he has a token of it
right through his life. So I want to look first at the
Soul Restorer, the Lord. As in the first verse, the Lord
is my shepherd, I shall not want. The Soul Restorer is He. He restoreth
my soul. Then secondly, the positive aspect
of restoring. He leadeth me in the paths of
righteousness. And explain when we come to that
point what I mean about the positive aspect of restoring. And then thirdly, why he restores
a soul. We are told in our text for his
namesake. That's why he does it. Firstly then, the soul restorer. It would be like going to the
illustration we had of the car being restored. But instead of
concentrating on the car, What we are looking at is the person
that is doing the restoring. And that is what is here. Our
first point, instead of looking at us, instead of looking at
our soul or our condition, I want to look firstly at the one that
is doing the restoring. Now may we make it very clear
that we cannot We cannot redeem ourselves. We cannot restore
ourselves. Not in any way, not in any step
towards us. It is God's work. It's God's
work in the beginning, calling out of nature's darkness and
into his marvelous light when we were dead in sins. It perhaps can be seen even more
clearly when we look at this same God, this same Jehovah,
eternal God, restoring a soul from the very beginning, quickening
into divine life. The very coming of our Lord to
this world was that He could faithfully, justly, righteously
restore a soul. You know, if one was to find
a car to restore, they couldn't just say, well, I'm going to
restore it. Someone would say, well, someone
owns that. Whose barn is it? Who owns it? If you want to restore it, you
pay for it. You've got to own it first. Then
you can do what you like with it. But you pay for it first. And our Lord Jesus Christ, The
Apostle Paul is very clear, ye are bought with a price. The
Lord's people are redeemed. They are set free by the payment
of a price. The debt that they owe is paid
through the sufferings, the death, the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is the blood that maketh atonement
for the soul. It is through what the Lord Jesus
has done upon Calvary's tree that qualifies him to be a restorer. It qualifies and enables God
to do what he could not otherwise justly and righteously do. We are clearly told in the Word
that it is the Spirit that quickeneth, or that makes alive the flesh,
profiteth nothing, and that which is done is that no flesh should
glory in his presence, that it should be the glory that is put
on the head of the restorer, and not on the head of the restored,
as if he had done it themselves. We are told as well, as I referred
to before, concerning the natural man. The natural man receiveth
not the things of God, neither can he know them, because they
are spiritually discerned. The word is clear, he which hath
begun a good work in you, that is the calling, will perform
it, that is the ongoing restoring, unto the day of Jesus Christ. The Lord finds us dead in sin,
he passes by us when we are in our blood, and He bids us live. By grace, you say, through faith,
that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. The Restorer is the God of heaven
and of earth, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is He that is
to do this work. And this should be a great encouragement
a great encouragement to us, where we can discern the Lord
has begun a work and called us by grace. And now through our
own sin, through Satan's temptations, through the allurements of the
world, through our foolishness, we've got ourselves into a low
place, discouraging place, a hard place, got ourselves far off
from the Lord. to be told in this that it is
the Eternal God that is the Restorer of the soul. He will restore the souls of
those for whom He has suffered, bled and died. It is His work and His work alone. The psalmist David here will
put the crown to be upon His hand. Maybe we can see it even
more clear when we think of the time of our death. What part,
what willpower, what hand can we have in taking our soul from
our mortal body in this time of death and bringing it to glory. One can see clearly that must
be God that does that. When we think of the resurrection
of the last day, it is God that raises the dead. It cannot possibly
be us. It is God's work. It is God's
work in beginning in calling by grace. And it is his work
all the way along the way. In no way in saying this do we
say that we are excused in our sin, that we can live carelessly
and prayerlessly, that we can sin that grace might abound.
The way of transgressors is hard. And if we were to ask David and
say, David, You say that He restoreth your soul. Does that then make
it less that you did in murder and in adultery? You say, no,
no, no, no, not at all. Not at all. O, that I never walked
in that foolish way. It's brought me so low, so far
off from the Lord. It brought such shame. Upon the
Lord such a reproach to his name, and the sword shall not depart
from my house. I reap what I've sown all my
days. The way of transgressors is hard. Do not willingly walk in this
way at all. And as soon as you realize that
you're walking in a wrong way, seek that you might be brought
back. But know this, It's easy to go
astray, but we might say impossible to be brought back, because that
honor and glory is the Lord's. And this is to be a gospel comfort. This is to be one of the privileges
of God's people. This is to be what David knew
as a shepherd, He was the shepherd. Never did he see one of his sheep
get itself back, restore itself. He knew what it was to be a restorer. And so he can say clearly to
us, he restored my soul. It'd be a wonderful testimony
if we can say that this is the case with us as well. that our Restorer, the Restorer,
is the Lord. And we're brought to know something
about Him, about His methods, about His long-suffering, about
His forbearance, about His kindness, about His mercy. so that we know that the Lord
has not dealt with us after our sins have deserved. He's not
left us even just to look back to when He first began with us,
but to see on occasion after occasion how the Lord, instead
of leaving us, instead of condemning us, He restored us. May the Lord's dealings with
us lead us to Him. To consider, to think on this
first point, the Restorer, the Lord Himself. To know something
more of Him. To understand something of Him. To do as in Psalm 107 at the
end. Who so is wise and shall observe
these things, even they shall understand. the loving kindness
of the Lord. We want to go then from the Restorer,
the sole Restorer, the Lord, to the positive aspect of restoring. Many of the Lord's people if
they realise that they are out of the way, perhaps overcome
with some sinful habit, or perhaps overtaken in an individual sin. Perhaps it is that they have
grown to not love the word as they used to, or find it hard
to pray more than a few minutes at a time. or find the services
of the Lord's house irksome, and don't desire the company
of God's people. Perhaps it is that they feel
hard and cold and worldly, have desire for things that please
the natural man, but not at all for the spiritual man. What often happens is that we
dwell upon the sin and dwell upon the problem. And the more
we think about it, the worse we get. And the more we try and
deal with that which has overtaken us, the more deeper into the
mire that we get. If the Lord let us have our own
way, Then it may be by willpower we overcame our sin. We can look upon ourselves and
say, well, you're not a bad Christian, you know. Full of self-righteousness, no
glory to the Restorer, but nothing done in a positive way. is a very real thing of what
the Lord said about the man. The devils came out of him, a
devil came out of him. And he went about seeking rest
and finding none. So he said, I'll return unto
my house from whence I came. And when he comes, he finds it
swept and garnished. Then he taketh seven devils worse
than himself. The latter end of that man is
worse than the beginning. If there is a void, it must be
filled with something. And if it is a void with ourselves,
on ourselves, it will be filled with evil. The children of Israel,
when they went into the Promised Land, they were told that they
could not enter into all of it at once. The reason was, lest
the beasts of the field increase upon thee. They couldn't just
kill and drive out all of the inhabitants, the Canaanites,
out of the land. if they had not got enough of
their own number to fill it in their place. Because then the
beasts of the field would have increased. So how they had to
do it was as they increased in number in their tribes, then
they had to fight, overtake more cities, drive out the inhabitants,
kill them, and take over their cities. That's how it was. There was to be no void left. If you were to have a glass jar
and some water in it, and you wanted to take the water out
of it, then if you started putting small pebbles in it or stones
in it, as you put them in, then the water would be pushed out.
When you'd finished, instead of a jar full of water, you have
a jar full of sand or a jar full of small pebbles. And the idea
is that there's not a void, there's not nothing there. There's always
something there. And so with the restoring here,
it is a restoring in leading in a positive way in the paths
of righteousness. And you might say, yeah, but
what about those sins? What about those evils? What
about those things that I've been committing? Won't there be repentance? Won't
there be a ceasing of them? Won't there be godly sorrow?
Yes, there will. But it will come forth from the
Lord leading me in the paths of righteousness. The other will
come. In Romans 8, we are told that
if ye, through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body,
ye shall live. So what does that mean? If we had two children and one
wanted to go to see a farm and the other wanted to go to the
beach, and the parent had to decide which one should go where,
They say, well, we're all going to go to the beach. And the one
that wanted to go to the farm would be mortified. You didn't
take my choice. You didn't do what I wanted.
I'm not getting what I wanted. I've got to go along to the beach. I didn't want to do that. And
so in a spiritual way, when the Lord leads in a path of righteousness,
then the old nature said, I don't want to go that way. I don't
want to walk in that way. And he's mortified. But he's mortified
through the Spirit. To be spiritually minded is life
and peace. To be calmly minded is death. This I say then, walk in the
Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. That
is the positive way. that is set before us here. Many will concentrate solely
on overcoming sin, not with that desire to walk in the paths of
righteousness. For that we have no power, for
that we need the Lord to lead us in those paths of righteousness. This is where then, in knowing
that He is the Restorer, Knowing that we need restoring, and maybe
we don't, and the Lord starts and brings the first need and
first concern in our soul, then it is that we seek unto Him. What a message to any that have
tried and tried and sought to bring themselves out of the pit
and out of their habits and out of their way of life that is
so dragging their spirit, their life down into the gutter. that
we're told, he restoreth my soul. The first thing really in those
paths of righteousness, the prompting of the Spirit, go and pray. Ask
of the Lord, Lord, help me, deliver my soul from going down into
the pit. Save me. And that breath of prayer,
again in Romans 8, the Spirit maketh intercession for the saints. with groanings which cannot be
uttered, that crying unto the Restorer. And what are those
paths of righteousness? One is that path of prayer. Go and pray. Beautiful promptings
to have that. And then the Word of God. In
Psalm 107, one of the things, one of the places they got into
Their soul abhorreth all manner of meat. You say, but the word
of God is the meat for my soul and is that through which I am
to be restored. And here I am, I abhor it. I
don't relish it. I find it hard to read a chapter. And yet, you know, in that very case,
it said he sent his word and healed them. The very thing that
they abhorred was used to restore them. Maybe remembering that. It is said to try and see what
hard-hearted prayers do, but see also what it is to be laboring
to read a chapter and maybe going back and over reading a verse
again and again because our mind has gone away on something else.
And we struggle to read it, but we read it. And we read it, crying
unto the Lord, Lord, restore my soul. We come to the house
of God and we acknowledge, we feel no appetite, no desire,
find the preaching hard, but our cry and desire is, Lord,
restore my soul. We come to the means of grace,
we use the means of grace, but our cry is unto the Restorer. Not thinking, how can I self-help?
There's so much of that today. So many self-help books. Just
do this, do that, follow this rule, and do this rule, and do
this thing, and you'll be able to do what you want to do. But
this is God's work. Yes, He uses means, but we tend
in ourselves to use the means but leave Him out. With the Thessalonians
at the beginning, We read that they heard the word, but the
word was not in word only. It was in spirit, demonstration
of the spirit and of power. So the restorer, he leads. He
leads in these paths. What are those paths of righteousness? paths of holiness, paths of truth
and grace, paths of fellowship with himself and with the people
of God, in the paths of love and of peace and of the fear
of the Lord, in honesty and justice, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ,
paths of repentance, He is exalted to give repentance and remission
of sins unto Israel. Those are paths of righteousness. So what I've said in a positive
way, in restoring, He's leading in a positive way. Now I know in the natural illustrations,
if you've got the car situation, Often there's got to be a lot
of taking away first, taking away the rust and dealing with
all those things before it starts to be repainted and restored. But in spiritual things, in spiritual
things, the Lord deals with it in leading, not driving, and
leading in paths of righteousness. And before ever the soul is aware
of it, They don't like the things that they once reveled in. And those things that they found
they could hardly stop doing, they now find distasteful. Leading in that which is pure
and right. I remember years ago, a friend
was trying to overcome smoking. And one of the ways that they
taught her how to do it was to spend some five minutes or so
brushing her teeth. And you'd have lovely clean teeth
and all smell of nice toothpaste. And it was to be done after a
meal time or the times that it used to be automatic wanting
to have a smoke. So instead of having the smoke,
they were to wash and wash their teeth. So after they'd done that,
what to have a horrible smelling, tasting thing in your mouth and
ruin all that nice toothpaste. They didn't want to do that.
And so in that way they were directing them in something positive
or clean or beautiful that would then take away their desire for
that which was horrible tasting and smelling. In that way it
was a positive way. And so it is in spiritual things. While we have breathed the fresh
air of the Gospel, while we breathe in the Word of God, while we
have been in the presence of the Lord and of his people, then
the presence of those that work iniquity and in the evil, we
say, how can I do this thing? This is the mortifying. This
is, through the Spirit, mortifying. This is following, not the flesh,
but following the Lord. The Lord going before His people
and drawing them, attracting them, alluring them after Himself. You know, in the parable of the
prodigal son, it wasn't the food that he was eating, the
pig's food, the famine, and everything like that that he had, but it
was when he thought of his father's house, when he thought of his
father's servants, when he thought of what he had there. That was
what drew him. Yes, it was the condition that
he was in that unsettled him and made him to desire those
things, but it was that which drew him. And this is what the
Lord does. He leads, he draws, he goes before. When he putteth forth his sheep,
he goeth before them, I'll make all my goodness pass before thee
in the way. Is what Paul said, let us run
the race is set before us looking unto Jesus. Is what he said,
I keep under my body, seeking those things which are above
and not those things which are on earth. And all the time the
emphasis was on the positive, not the negative. Not all the
time the mind concentrating on the sin, but looking out of self
unto Christ, unto His holiness. Thy track I see, says the hymn
writer, the narrow way I'll pursue till Him I view. To see the Lord and to be drawn
to Him. This is the method, the way that
the Lord takes. He leadeth me in the paths of
righteousness. Well, why does he? Why does he
do it? I want to look at this in our
third point. Does it say he does it because
we've been so diligent at the throne of grace? That we've been
so diligent at the means of grace? Does he say he does it because
there's something in us? No. It is for his namesake. That is why. You might say with David's case,
David in the line to Christ. David is king over Israel. the Lord's honour and glory at
stake. The Lord would not allow him
just to have it covered, but he was to restore him. We think of how it is in the
prophecy of Ezekiel in chapter 36 when the Lord is speaking
of those promises and blessings to Israel after they had gone
astray, and he says all what he will do for them. And he says, in verse 21, I had
pity for mine holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned
among the heathen, whither they went. Therefore say unto the
house of Israel, thus saith the Lord God, I will not I do not
this for your sake, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name's
sake, which ye have profaned among the heathen, whither ye
went. And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned
among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them.
And the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, saith the Lord
God. when I shall be sanctified in
you before their eyes. And he rehearses this again in
verse 32. Not for your sakes do I this,
saith the Lord God, be it known unto you, be ashamed and confounded
for your own ways, O house of Israel. We may say also the Lord
has that vested interest in doing it. God's people are his, he
has redeemed them. When the children of Israel rebelled
and went astray in the wilderness, and God said to Moses he would
destroy them, then Moses used the plea, if thou dost destroy
them, then the heathen will say, because he was not able to bring
them into the promised land, therefore he consumed them. in
the wilderness, and what wilt thou do for thy great name's
sake? And that was an effectual plea. If God does not have his people
sanctified and brought to him, they are the people that we read,
this people have I formed for myself, they shall show forth
my praise. But a backslidden soul is not
showing forth the praise of the Lord. One that is bringing reproach
upon His name is not doing so. But when brought to repentance,
brought to godly sorrow, brought to acknowledge the Lord's goodness
in restoring them and bringing them back, they do show forth
the praise and glory of God. It is also for His covenant's
sake, this is what David said, that although my house be not
so with God, yet hath He made with me a neverlasting covenant
ordered in all things and sure, this is all my salvation and
all my desire. The Lord is faithful to His covenant,
His honour, says the hymn writer, and glory's at stake to save
me from the burning lake. And so we need to remember this.
We do indeed receive the benefit of this work, It is a blessing
to us and every restored soul will bless and thank the Lord
for it. But remember, it is. He has done it for his name's
sake, for his honour and glory's sake. A people that he makes
intercession for in heaven, a people that he's loved with an everlasting
love, quicken them by his grace. and then kept right through life,
again and again, restoring their souls. Peter says how many times? Shall my brother sin against
me and then repent and I forgive him till seven times? Nay, says
the Lord, till seventy times seven. In other words, he restoreth
my soul seventy times seven, again and again. May we notice
what the Lord uses. May we ourselves use those means,
but be looking to the Restorer to use them, to bless them to
our souls. There's a great, great difference
in this. When we are looking for divine
power, we're looking for God's work, not a self-help remedy. Even though we might be using
the means that God uses, If we are saying, Lord, I can use the
means, but I don't need you. I don't need your power. I don't need your grace. I can
use these means. If I do this, I'll be helped. No. Acknowledge the means on
their own will not save, will not restore, but they will. When we're looking at the Lord
as the restorer, then we can say, surely as David does here,
He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of
righteousness for his name's sake. If we are to be able to
use this language, that means we must know this experience
too. Well, may the Lord bless this
to us and may we know this restoring by the Restorer, the God of heaven
and earth, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.