All right, if you'd open your
Bibles to Psalm 80. One of the most difficult things
for me when I preach is not coming up with words,
as you well know. I can always come up with words. It is trying to resist the impulse
that's in me to try to accomplish something. Whenever I study, Whenever I
prepare, there's always something I hope will be accomplished.
But you know, accomplishing is not our business. Doing is our
business. I'm sent to do something, and
that's to tell the truth. It's up to God to accomplish
something with it. I never know what God may accomplish by the
preaching of his word. I know in general what he will
accomplish. God will always, in the end, will have accomplished
this by the declaration of his word. He will have sought and
found every one of his sheep. When everything is done, when
all of history is wrapped up, every one God ever intended to
save shall be saved. And it shall have happened by
the agency, if you will, of the preaching of his gospel, as the
word says, the scriptures say. that it pleased God by the foolishness
of the message preached. And this message of the gospel
is foolish to this world. It pleased God by the foolishness
of the message preached to save them that believe. And so God
will use the message, the simple declaration of His gospel, to
find His sheep and to bring them to faith in Christ and secure
their everlasting salvation. And he will, now here's the interesting
thing, God will, by the same message preached, bring condemnation
on everyone that doesn't believe it. You see, the gospel is not
just some friendly message. The gospel is a declaration of
God, a declaration of his Son, a setting forth of God as he
is, a setting forth of you and me as we are. in truth, a setting
forth of Christ as the only way to God. The gospel is a line in the sand,
so to speak, that God has drawn. And it's a line by which all
men will be judged. Every one of us is born on the
wrong side of that line. Every one of us is born thinking
that we're not so bad and that there's something we can do to
improve our case and condition before God. And it's only when
God graciously sends forth His Word, that line that He draws,
and calls us, that His elect come to the other side of that
line. And when all is done, it shall be seen that every one
God chose way under there into eternity. Every one of them was
drawn out of that mass on the wrong side of the line and brought
to the right side. That experience of being brought
from one side to the other is different for every man. That
is, for some it's a soul-wrenching experience, for others it seems
to be a rather easy walk. For some it comes early in their
life, For some lay, and it all points in between. And even when we have been brought
to the proper side of that line, to the believing side of the
gospel line, even after that happens, we find within our flesh,
and this is that opening song we had, we find within our flesh
a tendency to hop across back to the other side. Now, God will
never let His people do that. He that calls them secures them. He that brings them from darkness
into light and from death into light, He keeps them and preserves
them. And yet they understand that
if He were for a moment to let them go, they would be right
back in darkness, right back in death that quick. And we find that even though
our Lord preserves us, yet all of us go through times in which
Our hearts grow faint, our spiritual minds grow dull,
and our desires for the Lord can't be seen. Now, this psalm
before us is a plea for deliverance, a plea
for salvation from trouble. We can't be certain what historical
events in the history of Israel prompted this psalm. We don't know because it doesn't
tell us. Most commentators seem to think it has to do with the
Babylonians coming down and bringing the northern ten tribes into
captivity because the psalmist speaks of Joseph He says, Here
are so shepherds of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock,
you who sit enthroned between the cherubim, shine forth before
Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh. Now Ephraim and Manasseh were
sons of Joseph, Benjamin was his brother, and all of those
tribes belonged to the north. And so it is assumed that it
has to do with the troubles that those northern ten tribes of
Israel suffered because of their disobedience to God. But two applications can be made
for you and me. And you know, when we open scriptures,
it is not nearly so important that we figure out how it applied
to the historical events of the day in which it was written.
It's important that we find out how it applies to us. Every time we meet like this.
Every time. Let us say in our hearts, when
the word is opened, how does this apply to me? Oh, God save us from thinking
about how it applies to somebody else. Or even worse yet, God
save us from hearing his word and hearing it only on the intellectual
level and grasping the meaning of the words without ever being
affected by the power of those words. God deliver us from having a
form of godliness, but denying the power of it. And so this
morning as we look at these words, we look at what the psalmist
wrote, let's think of how it applies to each of us individually. In your own heart, ask God to
apply these words to your case. Because I guarantee you in one
way or another, it applies to you. Because everybody here is
in need. of God's salvation, everybody. It may apply to those who do
not yet know the Lord, who have never from the heart called upon
His name and asked for His salvation. We have before us in this psalm
the pattern of coming to God for His salvation. How do you
do that? If a man wants God's salvation, what should he do?
Well, it's right here. To the child of God, here is
a testimony of spiritual decline, God's disciplining hand, and
the prayer for recovery. In either case, the issues are
the same. There's sinfulness and rebellion.
There's God's judging hand, followed by a plea for recovery. Also with a pattern of how that
recovery will show itself. There's five points, and we'll
go through most of them pretty quickly. At least I hope we will. Five points. Number one, what
is the plea? A man wants salvation. What is
he asking for, really? Secondly, a look at the one who
makes the plea. Thirdly, a look at the one to
whom the plea is made. The request. Fourthly, the one
whose name is our plea. And then last, the gracious result
of God's gracious deliverance. Now, let's look at the one or
excuse me, let's look at the plea itself. It's repeated three
times. First of all, we see it in verse
three. Restore us, O God. Make your face shine upon us
that we may be saved. Now, this sounds like the plea
of someone who has known the favor of God, but feels that
it's been lost. You know, this could be the plea,
in a sense, of a lost man, because he understands when man was created,
man did have fellowship with God. When God made Adam, there
was no breach between Adam and God. Adam and Eve lived in perfection
before God. They lived in innocence. And
from what we read in scriptures, God himself fellowshiped with
them. It says the voice of Jehovah
walked in the garden with them. That voice of Jehovah is none
other than our Lord Jesus Christ appearing way back yonder. And
the God who made them was in close fellowship with them. We
sing that song, I come to the garden alone, while the dew is
still on the roses, and the chorus says, and he walks with me, and
he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own. That is mostly
a sentimental song, but the truth of the matter is, it was true
with Adam and Eve. In that garden, God walked with
them, and talked with them, and fellowshiped with them, and communed
with them. But Adam sinned. Adam rebelled against his Creator,
and that fellowship was broken. And in salvation, When we call
upon God for His salvation, we're calling upon Him to restore that
which was lost. But this also could be the cry
of a child of God who knew at one time what it is to spiritually
speaking walk and talk with the God of His salvation, but either through carelessness or just outright boneheadedness,
have departed from the God of their salvation. In some respects,
have ignored Him, have not paid attention, have not sought His
face, and they find themselves suddenly without the ability
to see Him or hear from Him, and their heart longs for Him.
And yet they cannot find him. That woman in the Song of Solomon,
she said, My soul looked for him, but I couldn't find him. Individual believers experience
this. Maybe you are. Maybe you have. If you are a
believer and have never experienced this, hang on, someday you will.
I don't know of any child of God who has never gone through
times of spiritual dryness. times when they could not commune
with their Lord. This happens to individual believers.
I'll tell you this, too. It happens to entire churches.
Our Lord, speaking through the Apostle John in the book of Revelation,
He says, You contact seven churches. I'll give you their names. And
He says, I've got a letter for each one of them. And in each
one of them was a warning. He says, Repent, or I'll take
your candlestick out. You'll no longer have the light.
Oh, God will never withdraw from any individual one of His people
such that that person is eternally lost. But He has withdrawn His
testimony from churches. He has withdrawn His gracious
presence from churches. In fact, to my knowledge, there
is no church, no gospel-preaching church, in any of those seven
cities to whom our Lord sent letters through John. You can go throughout the various
nations of Europe and you can point to a time when each one
of them had churches within them full of the gospel. Where are
they now? There was a time when England
Spiritually speaking, when England held the position that this country
does right now, it was from England that the light went out. It was
from that country that most missionaries came. That's where the gospel
was for the most part in the world. I speak to brethren in
that area now. They said it's tough to find
a church anywhere with any kind of life in it. And those churches
in which the gospel is preached are very, very small. And now
we see the gospel on decline even in this country. And what about this congregation?
I will leave it to God. He'll have to reveal the spiritual
state of this congregation and the people in it. But let us
never be bold and proud as though the fact that we have the truth
of God means that God will always minister the truth through this
congregation. He is as free to leave here as
he is anyplace else. Paul said to the Gentiles who
were boasting themselves against the Jews, he says, remember,
God cut the Jews off of the vine and grafted you a wild olive
branch into that tree. And he can, if he wants, take
the wild olive branch right back out and put the natural one back
in. Oh, let us never be proud. He prays for this. The psalmist
prays for this. He says, restore us. Bring back
what was lost. Make your face shine upon us.
Commune with us that we may be saved. Restore. Reveal. Save. Let me ask you a question. Do
you have in your heart the desire to be restored? Do you have in your heart the
desire to see God's face? Do you have in your heart the
desire to be saved? Let's look for a moment then
at this question. Here's the plea to be restored, to have
God's face to shine upon us, to be delivered from the trouble
that we've brought on ourselves. What's the one who pleased this?
Who would ever ask for such a thing as this? Well, it's the person
who feels his loss. Now, God does not tell us that
we should not believe Him until we feel that we need Him. But the fact is, nobody does
call on God until they feel they need Him. Now, what do I mean
by feel? I'm almost afraid to use that
word because of the way it gets abused. Everybody's feelings
and emotions are a little different. Some people have feelings that
are easily provoked. Others, they're like stone, emotionally
speaking. And it's hard to affect them
for good or bad so far as emotions are concerned. Let me tell you
what I mean by feeling your need to be aware of your need. And to be burdened by that awareness. There are some people, sadly,
who have no awareness of their condition before God. They are
born, they live, and they die not having any inkling that God
is angry with the wicked all the day long. God leaves them
in their darkness. God leaves them to themselves.
They think that the things they've done have been good enough. And
even though they've done some things wrong, they haven't been
as bad as their neighbor, maybe. They've done the best they can.
and all of their failures so they think can be excused by
something. Well, I wouldn't have done that if I hadn't been raised
like I was. I wouldn't have done that if
I hadn't been confronted with that strong a temptation. I wouldn't
have done that if I'd have known better. Men always come up with excuses
for their sin. It's because they don't understand.
They're not aware The condition that we're in before
God. The Bible doesn't say that we've got problems. The Bible
doesn't say we've made mistakes. The Bible says we're dead in
trespasses and sins. Dead is a pretty serious condition.
The Bible says, or excuse me, the common phrase says, where
there's life, there's hope. That's true. You can't find spiritual
life among men. Not among natural men. We are
born spiritually dead. We have a sentence of death upon
us, but even worse than that, we have a nature of rebellion
against God that cannot be described in any other terms than dead. We're dead to the Word of God. If God has not regenerated your
heart, I can preach the gospel this morning. I can preach it
clear and with power and you won't hear it. It'll be so much
more religion to you. It won't impact your heart. It
won't move you. It won't touch you. Just like
a blind man, you can shine the brightest light in the world
in his face. He's still not going to see it because he's blind. And we were all born spiritually
blind. Oh, God granted this morning I'd be able to shine the light
and God would give us eyes to see it and rejoice in what we
see. No, God doesn't require us to
have an emotional experience, but He requires that we be aware
of and burdened by our problem. Nobody will come to God unless
he is burdened in such a way. There is no virtue in feeling
bad about sin, to feel guilty about it, or to even feel lost. Rather, it's simply a sign that
God is beginning to reveal the truth. When a man becomes aware and
burdened by his sin, it may be a sign that God's beginning to
work. That song we sang, Amazing Grace,
you know everybody sings that song, very few have any concept
of what it's talking about. That second verse, "'Twas grace
that taught my heart to fear, then grace my fears relieved."
He used to be popular to say. I've heard some preachers, some
faithful gospel preachers say this. Well, you preach the law
to a man until he becomes aware of his sin. Then you preach grace
to him. No, you preach the gospel to him. That'll teach him about
his sin. Grace makes us aware of sin. Oh, the law will make us aware
that we're transgressors. But you bring the law to an unregenerate
man, you bring the law to a man that's not been born again, he'll
say, oh, I've done awful, I've got to do better, or God won't
have me. And you go off and try to do
better. But you bring the gospel to bear,
you bring the testimony of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Oh,
how can you stare at the Son of God, lift it up on a cross
and point out His soul and death, and say, you know, I'm not so
bad. You know, that sin really wasn't
that bad. If your sin's not that bad, why
is Jesus Christ dying on a cross? If you could save yourself, if
all it took was a little bit of reformation and improvement,
why did God send His Son and pour out on His Son the wrath
of an everlastingly offended God? If you would learn what you are,
don't go to the law. You go to the cross and you see
what kind of price had to be paid to redeem a soul like yours. If all it took was a little water
sprinkled on the brow or a whole bunch of water and dunking your
body in it. If all it took was a little wine
and a little wafer. If all it took was to stand up
in front of the church and tell people that you believe, if all
it took was answering the questions that are put to you, having had
it taught all your childhood, if all it took was joining the
church, if all it took was getting over your drunkenness, if all
it took was quitting your adulteries or quitting your cussing, if
that's all it took, Jesus Christ wouldn't have needed to come.
Because a natural man can do all those things. Jesus Christ came and he bore
in his body the sins of his people. Why? Because they could never,
by their own strength, endure the anger of God for their sins.
And they never could, by their own works of righteousness, please
the righteous God. Jesus Christ came to do what
we could never do. That's how we learn our condition.
Don't you just hate it when you do something so badly that they
just tell you to move out of the way and they call someone
else in to do it? Well, that's so embarrassing,
isn't it? That's happened to me a few times,
you know. A lot of times. We try. And we couldn't do it. And God said, move out of the
way. I'm going to bring in somebody else to do it. You couldn't please
me. I'm going to bring in my son
to please me. You couldn't satisfy my justice.
I'm going to bring my son in to do it. The gospel is humiliating. You
know that? It's humbling. He who believes it is not proud
before God. He realizes the only reason God sent his son to do
his work is because we couldn't. We made a mess of everything. What a wretched thing to experience
this being cut off from God. What a wretched thing to think
that we who believe God can go so long without even being aware
of how our spiritual life has declined. You know, the slightest
decrease The prosperity of this life is immediately felt by us,
and we seek a remedy to it. Let there be a slight loss in
finances. Let there be a little bit of
sickness in the body. Let there be one lost friend,
one demotion of any sort, and right away we feel it and we
try to do something about it. But we can go day after day and
week after week and not hear from God, not have His face shine
upon us, not experience His salvation. We don't even know it's happening. We go off pursuing the world.
I do it. You do it. We go off pursuing
the world. We don't even think about God. Weeks go by. Sundays go by. We miss church.
We don't hear the gospel. It means nothing to us. We can find the slightest excuse
to be absent. from his word and we don't feel
as though we've missed anything. Why is that? How does a man know he has such
a need? The face of the Lord is no longer seen. It says, Restore
us, O God Almighty, make your face shine upon us that we may
be saved. Now, I'm not going to say that
every trouble that comes our way, or even that Every time
it feels as though we're in a spiritual decline, that it is the result
of some sinful action on our part. I'm not a prophet. I can't tell you why things are
going on in your life the way they are. But you know, sometimes
our troubles are the direct result of our rebellious actions. He
told the Corinthian church that their abuse of the Lord's table
had resulted that many of them were sick and some had even died. So it can happen, and it may
do us well, when we find ourselves in times of distress, in times
of trouble, especially when we find ourselves in times of spiritual
distress, that we ask, why? When we pray and our prayer goes
unanswered, listen to verse 4, O Lord God Almighty, how long
will your anger smolder against the prayers of your people? We sing sweet hour of prayer,
but then we don't pray. And then a little trouble comes
up, and we start to pray. And we find nothing happens. Or we're
troubled in our soul, and we try to seek the face of the Lord.
We want to connect with Him, but we find no connection. When our spiritual protection
is removed, look at verse 12. Salma says, why have you broken
down its walls? That is the walls that God put
up around. They were symbolic. He's speaking symbolically, but
the walls that God put around his vineyard to protect it. Why
have you broken down its walls so that all who pass by pick
its grapes, bores from the forest, ravage it and the creatures of
the field feed on it. Let me go directly to what I
think is being spoken of here. Here's a child of God. One way
you can understand or sense that you're in a state of spiritual
decline. And that's when our adversary, the devil, is able
to shoot his arrows of guilt and condemnation, and they find
their mark, and you can find no way to rid yourself of your
guilt. How is it that the believer puts
away his guilt? By looking to Christ. It's the
only way there ever was to put away guilt. How is it that we
gain a sense of that forgiveness? By the hearing of God's Gospel.
By having it repeated to us time and again. Oh, when we're in
such a state of spiritual decline that the gospel gets in our ears
but never seems to touch our hearts. And our faith declines. And Satan, oh, I don't think
that he's going to come to you and try to tempt you. He may
tempt you with some kind of covetousness and lust and all those common
things that people think Satan's associated with. I'll tell you
about what his worst But work is his most destructive work.
He's called the accuser of the brethren. And he comes to God's
people and he's got lots to accuse him of. And when his arrows of
accusation, his fiery darts of guilt find their mark. It's because the shield of faith
has been let down. And you've exposed yourself. to His ways. So often in such a case like
that, we come before the Lord and we pour out our hearts to
Him and we find no answer. Why? Because He poured out His heart
to us and we gave Him no answer. He spoke and we wouldn't listen.
Time and time again, He comes to His people and brings the
restoring message of the gospel. But sometimes we find that time
and time again we won't listen. We won't pay attention. And then
comes the day when God is silent. And suddenly we notice we're
not hearing. And we call out to Him. And for a while He'll
be as deaf to us as we were to Him. Let me get to the answer. Here's
the name we plead. Verse 17, let your hand rest
on the man at your right hand, the son of man you have raised
up for yourself. Can we fix this problem? We get
ourselves in the messes. Can we get ourselves out? Oh,
no. Our prayer in restoration is
not, Lord, make me strong so I can get out of here. It is
not, Lord, make me a better Christian. It is, Lord, look with favor. That's what's meant by let your
hand rest. Look with favor on the man at your right hand. Who
is at the right hand of God? The Lord Jesus Christ. Do you
realize that when we seek God's blessing, if we ask Him to look
at us, let it only be in these words, Look upon me and pity
me. But when we want God to look
on something that will prompt Him to bless, then let us say
this, Lord, You look at Him, and it's at Your right hand,
the Lord Jesus Christ. Bless me on account of Him. Don't bless me according to what
I have done, for everything I have done is worthy of curse. Bless
me for what He has done. Look, let your hand rest on the
man at your right hand. God's hand rested on Jesus Christ
throughout His life. His hand of grace rested on Christ
to enable Him to do everything that was necessary. His hand
of favor was upon Christ. So much so, He said, this is
My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And God's hand rested
on him. And then God's hand of judgment
rested on Jesus Christ. And God poured out upon his son
all the judgment due unto the sins of his people. And now we pray, Lord, let your
hand of favor rest on the man at your right hand. God raised
Jesus Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand. And all the work that Christ
did while here is being accomplished in the
salvation of his people. The fact that God set Jesus Christ
in his right hand shows us that God favors him. And when we pray,
let your hand rest on the man at your right hand, we're saying,
Father, you give success for all that our Lord Jesus Christ
did in our behalf. Oh, He don't plead us, do He?
Do you want your name to come up before God? No, I don't want
my name up there. There's one name God hears, one
name He loves, one name He'll answer to, Jesus Christ. That hymn, the chorus goes, that I want is Jesus. All that I have is Jesus. All that I need, all that I plead,
yes, all that I need is Jesus. All that name gets the ear of
God. I pity those that try to go to
God through the names of saints and priests and all that. One
name. There's none other name given
among men under heaven whereby we must be saved. That name. Jesus. Lord, let your hand be
upon him that's at your right hand. The son of man. Meaning
the perfect man. The exemplary man. The one you
raised up for yourself. God made Adam and Adam made a
mess. So God raised up another man. The man Christ Jesus. God in human flesh. God raised
Him up for us. I understand that. But most of
all, God raised Him up for Himself. God raised up Jesus Christ to
bring honor to God and to magnify God's law, to satisfy God's law,
and to please God. And Jesus Christ is the only
one that's ever done that. And all that He accomplished
in his perfect life was sacrificed in behalf of those who rebelled against God. Here it is. Whether you have
never experienced the grace of God, or whether you at this present
time feel that spiritually you have declined, here's the answer.
It's the same answer every time. It's Christ. It's to look to
Him. is to call on God in His name,
is to ask God to give success to Christ. And what will be the
result of this? If God will place His hand upon
Jesus Christ and give success to the work of Christ, verse
18, then we will not turn away from You. Revive us. Revive us with Christ. Revive
us, and we will call on Your name. Restore us, O Lord God
Almighty. Make your face shine upon us,
that we may be saved. You need to be saved? You in
a mess? I hope you think you are. Because
whether or not you think you are, you are. And if God will
let you know you're in a mess, and make you call on His name
and seek Him through His Son, And He will in time restore you.
He will in time make His face to shine upon you. And He will
save you according to His promise. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. John, you want to lead our closing
hymn? All hail the power of Jesus'
name, number 42. All hail the power of Jesus,
and let angels prostrate fall. Bring forth the royal diadem,
and crown Him Lord of all. Sin of Israel brings me ransom
from the fall. Will Him who saved you by His
grace, then bow Him over all? Will Him who saved you by His
grace, Till every kindred, every tribe,
all this earth is filled with hope. To Him, all majesty, ascribe
thy crown. Yonder sacred runway, at his
feet they fall. Join the everlasting song to
the crown Him bow.