The Soul’s Song Series in the Psalms

Singing for Revival.

Psalm 85 (NIV84)

For the director of music. Of the Sons of Korah. A psalm.

You showed favor to your land, O Lord;

you restored the fortunes of Jacob.

You forgave the iniquity of your people

and covered all their sins. Selah

You set aside all your wrath

and turned from your fierce anger.

Restore us again, O God our Savior,

and put away your displeasure toward us.

Will you be angry with us forever?

Will you prolong your anger through all generations?

Will you not revive us again,

that your people may rejoice in you?

Show us your unfailing love, O Lord,

and grant us your salvation.

I will listen to what God the Lord will say;

he promises peace to his people, his saints—

but let them not return to folly.

Surely his salvation is near those who fear him,

that his glory may dwell in our land.

Love and faithfulness meet together;

righteousness and peace kiss each other.

Faithfulness springs forth from the earth,

and righteousness looks down from heaven.

The Lord will indeed give what is good,

and our land will yield its harvest.

Righteousness goes before him

and prepares the way for his steps.

Psalm 85 is a song; indeed a lament where a longing heart wants refomation; restoration and revival!

There is nothing in the title to show the historical setting of Psalm 85. It is simply introduced as another of the songs of the “Sons of Korah”, which we encountered in Psalms 42, 44–49) and are now rediscovering in Psalms 84, 85, 87, 88).

What we can at least say, is that this Psalm alludes to a historical restoration (perhaps the return of the Jews from Egypt at the Exodus or the return of the Jews from Babylon at the time of Ezra and Nehemiah) of the people of God in the words: “You showed favour to your land, O Lord; you restored the fortunes of Jacob. You forgave the iniquity of your people and covered all their sins. Selah You set aside all your wrath and turned from your fierce anger.”(vs 1-3)

which is then followed by a prayer for deliverance - for reformation, resotoration and revival in verses 4–7, “Restore us again, O God our Savior, and put away your displeasure toward us. Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger through all generations? Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you? Show us your unfailing love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation.”

So, although we don’t know for certain the historical setting, in one sense this very good, for it reminds us that no matter how great the blessings of the past have been, we can never sit back on our laurels and simply expect the blessing - if we turn away from God due to carelessness or complacency or worse, due to unconfessed sin and waywardness, then this Psalm reminds us that we need to return to the Lord and seek His face!

Revival always begings in the House of God. As 1 Peter 4:17 “For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God?”

Revival always starts with repentance on the part of believers. Someone asked the renowned Ameriocal Evangelist, Dr. Reuben A Torrey(1856-1928) how a person may begin to experience revival and he said, “Get a piece of chalk and draw a circle on the floor with that piece of chalk. And then step inside the circle and say, ‘Lord, start a revival inside this circle.’”

That’s good counsel! In once sense of course, revival is a spiritual renewal and it is a sovereign moving of the Holy Spirit of God at a time and in a way that is not controlled by us but as Charles G. Finney discovered, “Revival starts with repentance on the part of God’s people. If we will start obeying God, the Holy Spirit will begin to work in power in our lives, and as a result in the lives of those who as yet have not believed on the Lord Jesus Christ.”

So, this is a Psalm in which the desire for reformation; restoration and revival is at its heart - it is a lament cry for more of God! “Send a revival, start the work in me.”(J. Edwin Orr).

Listen to James Montgomery Boice as he asks in his comentary asked: “Have you ever been discouraged because the life you are living now does not seem to be as real or as joyful as your life was after you first became a Christian? John Wesley knew times like this and wrote about them poetically, asking, “Where is the joy I knew When first I saw the Lord?” It is a good question. In such times we long for the spiritual vitality and fruitfulness of earlier days. And if we are not too discouraged to pray about it, our prayer is often that God might revive us or restore us to what we once knew. Psalm 85 is precisely this kind of prayer.”

“Send a revival, start the work in me.”(J. Edwin Orr).

Now, it may be that you do not consider yourself in need of reformation, renewal and revival. Well think again!

Nathaniel Olsen once asked : "When do we need a revival?" And he answered: "When it is easier to stay at home than to go to church. When it is easier to work that to worship. When it is easier to be critical than kind. When it is easier to read fiction than the Bible. When it is easier to shirk God-given opportunities that to do it. When it is easier to support the club than the Church. When it is easier to sleep in church than to stay awake. When it is easier to grumble than to praise. When it is easier to condemn souls than to pray for their Salvation. When it is easier to hold grudges than to forgive. When it is easier to be worldly than to be holy. When it is easier to withhold our tithes and offerings and spend them on trinkets of time instead of investing them on the diamonds of eternity"

Jesus speaking to the Ephesian Church, in commending them for their zeal and their faithfulness but nonetheless said of them: “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first”(Rev 2:3-5).

Who of us have lost that sense of the love of Jesus? If it is so we need a revival for Revival is “a people saturated with God!”(Brian Edwards). These are in fact the words of Duncan Campbell who experienced this himself in the Isle of Lewis “But this I can say. The moment that that happened in the barn (a repentance on th part of the people in the light of reading Psalm 24) a power was let loose in Barvas that shook the whole of Lewis. I say shook Lewis. God stepped down. The Holy Spirit began to move among the people. And the minister writing about what happened on the following morning said this, “You met God on meadow and moorland. You met him in the homes of the people. God seemed to be everywhere…I know this, that from village and Hamlet the people came. Were you to ask some of them today, “What was it that moved you?” They couldn’t tell you. Only that they were moved by a power that they could not explain and the power was such as to give them to understand and see that they were hell deserving sinners…Now that is the fact that cannot be disputed. God was everywhere. And because of this awareness of God the churches were crowded, crowded. Through the day, right on through the night until five and six o’clock in the morning. In revival, time does not exist. You see, the presence of God was there!” (Revival on the Isle of Lewis by Rev. Duncan Campbell Wednesday, March 1, 1950).

Don’t we want that? A revival of a daily reminder that Christ, who stands at the door of our hearts knocking, is welcomed in by us, enligntening and enliving us once again.

"Revival begins with a vision, and the vision begins with a new sense of Jesus Christ. Revival does not begin in theology, but in a theophany. It begins in a revelation of Jesus Christ Himself and a sense of the nearness of the Master"(Douglas Brown).

I could quote many examples here as to what God can do for a person who opens their heart to Christ for restoration and revivals but here is one of my favourites.

D. L Moody. Moody had many years of successful ministry but he become increasingly disatisfied with his ministry.

In the summer of 1871, two women in his congregation felt an unusual burden to pray for him "that the Lord would give him the baptism of the Holy Ghost and of fire." Moody would see them praying in the front row of his church and he was irritated. But soon he gave in and in September began to pray with them every Friday afternoon.

On November 24, 1871, Moody's church building was destroyed in the great Chicago fire so he went to New York to seek financial help.

Day and night he would walk the streets desperate for the touch of God's power in his life. Then suddenly, “one day, in the city of New York—oh, what a day!—I cannot describe it, I seldom refer to it; it is almost too sacred an experience to name.... I can only say that God revealed himself to me, and I had such an experience of his love that I had to ask him to stay his hand. I went to preaching again. The sermons were not different; I did not present any new truths, and yet hundreds were converted. I would not now be placed back where I was before that blessed experience if you should give me all the world—it would be small dust in the balance.” (W. R. Moody, The Life of D. L. Moody, New York: 1900, p. 149)

And what an impact his ministry had from thereon in! As John Piper, speaking of Moody reminded us: He was a man who “without higher education, founded three schools; without theological training, reshaped Victorian Christianity; without  radio or television reached 100 million people.”

Lord, “Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?”

If we are to be reformed, restored and revived, we do well to learn from this Psalm’s teaching as we long for spiritual renewal and revival:

1. WE NEED TO REMEMBER PAST MERCIES!

It is so easy for us to forget what God has done for us and become discouraged!

To overcome disappointment and discouragment as to our present spiritual statewe need to reflect on the goodness of God toward us in past days.

This is what the Psalmist does in verses 1–3: “You showed favour to your land, O Lord; you restored the fortunes of Jacob. You forgave the iniquity of your people and covered all their sins. Selah You set aside all your wrath and turned from your fierce anger.”(vs 1-3)

God has been merciful. God has been good; God has been gracious! We must never forget what he has done for us!

Now, this can lead to discouragment because we remember past mercies and lament present difficulties and so further discourage ourselves, but this is not what God intends.

What God intends is to remind us that what he has done in the past; He can do again! Because God is good; gracious; kind and merciful he can forgive us and restore us all over again no matter how far we have fallen!

And notice, though Israel had been blessed with a good land and great privileges, nothing was greater than the fact God had granted them forgiveness, atonement, pardon and restoration!

“The greatest of all mercies that we can receive from God is forgiveness of sins, and it is from this foundation that all other covenanted mercies flow. Yet how little we value it! If God gives us good health, a happy and supportive family, a good job, and praise from our employer and friends, we think we are blessed. If we lack any one of these things, we begin to suppose that God has somehow forgotten us or does not care. We do not think how blessed we are to have our sins forgiven and to be delivered from the judicial wrath of God through the atoning death of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.”(James Montgomery Boice).

If we would have revival, we begin with the cross and the mercy of God - we thank God for Jesus and the ever-present reality of power of the blood of Christ to cleanse us from all sin!(1 John 1:9-2:3).

If we are to be reformed, restored and revived:

2. WE NEED TO PRAY FOR A RESTORATIVE REVIVAL:

It is not enough to merely remember the mercies of God to us in the past, we must allow these things to embolden and energise us with a call to God for a revival of the those past mercies in the present time!

a. God please RESTORE!

The Psalmist asks God to “restore” and “revive us again”(v. 6)

The Hebrew word for “restore” is from a root meaning to “turn” ; in the srnse of “turn us back,” as used here - an admission of falling away but a desire for true repentance and restoration in order than we may be the people God wants us to be!

It can also carry the sense of “turn us from” again as in the context here of turning us from our foolish ways that lead to wrath and judgment because as a nation we have displeased you and the land is receiving a just punishment, so turns us back and be mercful to us though we are undeserving!

And incidently, though we as a nation cannot claim the same status as that of Israel as we are not a divinely appointed Theocratic State in the same sense as Israel we certainly can look back and see how far we have fallen away from God as a nation; we can certainly say: "you showed favour to your land O, Lord"!

When we remember the sacrifice of men like Wycliffe; Tyndale; Cranmer; Latimer; Ridley and others who prayed for and under God brought about Reformation in England. When we think of the 288 Protestant martyrs who sought to maintain it in the pain of death. When we think of the great periods of Revival under men like the Puritans; Whitefield and Wesley.

When we think of the social effects of the Gospel in the abolition of the Slave trade; the setting up of schools and hospitals and social relief for the poor; the improvement in industrial relations and the abolition of child-labour in the work houses; the setting up of orphanages.

We must never forget our heritage and we can pray for a restoration of the glories of it again!

b. God please REVIVE!

Shortly after he asks God to restore, he then asks him to “revive us again”.

To revive means to resurrect or make alive. It implies that the people were alive once, have died in a spiritual sense, and now need to be given spiritual life again.

This is graphically depicted in Ezekiel chapter 37: "The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me to and fro among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, "Son of man, can these bones live?" I said, "O Sovereign LORD, you alone know." Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, `Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.' So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, `This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.'" So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet--a vast army. Then he said to me: "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, `Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.' Therefore prophesy and say to them: `This is what the Sovereign LORD says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.'"(Ezek 37v1-14).

This shows without question that God alone can revive us! Only God can make dry bones live!

God has revived His Church in the past. Why can he not do so now? Lord ‘Will you not revive us again"

This is what the church almost always needs, and it is how revivals come. It is what the people needed; it is what we need whenever we seem to have lost the wonder and the joy of our salvation.

Happily, God is the great restorer and reviver. He can restore what apart from him could never be made good. As the Prophet Joel day, said to a people whose land was blighted by locusts: Joel 2:25–26 “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten— the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm— my great army that I sent among you. You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed.”

Sin causes us to lose many blessings that cannot be recovered and are gone. But God can give new opportunities and new blessings. we may have made a mess and left things in our lives in ruin, But God can restore and God can revive us again.

If we will turn to God, He will return to us and restore and revive us again.

And once the people of God are revived; once we become serious for God and actively seek His face we begin to influence the world.

We begin to live for Christ so openly and consistently, with noticeable changes of conduct, that the world outside takes notice and begins to take an interest in the church to see what is happening.

This is how revival in the Church impacts on Society in general.

c. God please show us you UNFAILING LOVE!

The Psalmist prays: “Lord show us your unfailing love and grant us your salvation”!

He cannot ask God to revive His people because they are good or consistent or determined to reform their lives and live as God intends. He pleads the mercy of God to triumph over judgment; the grace of God to set aside His wrath.

God is unfailing in his love, and it is to this, the mercy of God, that the Psalmist pleads.

Habakkuk prayed this way at a time when Israel was far from the Lord.

God had told Habakkuk that he was going to send judgment on His people by allowing the Babylonians to invade Judah and carry the people into captivity.

This, as you can imagine was devestating news for Habbakkuk and he asked God lots of questions because he could not understand how God could use an ungodly nation to punish people who, though they were not very godly at this time, were nevertheless at least more godly than the Babylonians.

So, Habakkuk asked his questions, then said, I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint (Hab. 2:1).

When God answere Habakkuk, He simply said: Hab. 2:4 “See, he is puffed up; his desires are not upright—but the righteous will live by his faith.” This is of course the great announcemnt in the Book of Romans and is at the heart of the gospel, that a man or woman is not justified by works of the law but by fauth in the righteouness of Jesus Christ, imputed to us on the merits of His precious blood.

It was rediscovered by Martin Luther and others at the outset of the Protestant Reformation and the Church that had so long lived in darkness was again revived!

So Habbakkuk had his answer but even while he waited for his answer and subsquently after receiving his answer, he prayed that God would send a revival in Habakkuk 3:1-2, “Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.”

Habbakuk’s prayer also reminds us that as we pray for revival that God may not answer all of our questions and he may keep us waiting a while, but we should commit to enduring prayer: “Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.”

d. God please let your GLORY DWELL IN OUR LAND!

We ask God for reformation; restoration and revival not merely for our sakes but for His sake! For His glory! - "Who cannot but grieve to see Zion powerless and poverty-stricken and so unworthy of her great Lord and Master. What can be more pitiful than to see the body of Christ reduced to no more than a number of committees and conferences without the Spirit and without power. Oh to see Christians on their knees in repentance and earnest prayer that God should visit us again in His grace" (Dr D.M. Lloyd-Jones).

And when God visits us like this and blesses us in this way, everything will change for the better as predicted by the Psalmist in verses 10–13, to a brighter promised day when revival comes: “I will listen to what God the Lord will say; he promises peace to his people, his saints— but let them not return to folly. Surely his salvation is near those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in our land. Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other. Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven. The Lord will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest. Righteousness goes before him and prepares the way for his steps.”

Derek Kidner says of these verses: “The climax is one of the most satisfying descriptions of concord—spiritual, moral and material—to be found anywhere in Scripture.”

God will bring His “peace” (shalom) to his people because the Lord’s “salvation is near those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in our land” (v. 9).

When God visits us with His salvation: “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” Pointing us to the work of Jesus Christ in making atonement for our sins. For at the cross, God has satisfied the demands of his righteousness, punishing sin in His Son and at the same time; showing mercy to those who have sined and fallen short of his just standards. In Jesus, as Paul puts it in Romans 3:21-25: “But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement,a through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.”

God’s mercy to us in Christ Jesus reconciles us to Him; brings us peace and acceptance and one day, it brings reconcilliation among peoples as thely come into relationship with God and lay down their enmity toward others who they now counts as brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus!

And it will bring reconciliation to the world; even to the earth which was cursed at Eden and restored in Jesus who now become peacemakers in an otherwise cruel, warring, and disharmonious world.

Conclusion & Application

If we feel a longing in our hearts for reformation; resotoration and revival then know this! God waits in Heaven to be gracious to us. Isaiah 30:18 “Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!”

God hears us! He knows the desires of our heart! He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.

But we need to “turn to Him”; to “seek Him”! - "if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land"(2 Chron 7v14).

If we are to be reformed, restored and revived, we need to:

1. Pray honestly before God.

Do we need to confess our sins? Do we need to radically deal with the bosom sins of the heart?

We do well to pray this prayer from the Book of Common Prayer: Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires  of our own hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things   which we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done; and there is no health in us. But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare thou them, O God, which confess their faults. Restore thou them that are penitent; according to thy promises declared unto mankind      in Christ Jesu our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake, that we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, to the glory of thy holy name.  Amen.

2. Pray hoping in God.

Let us remember who God is; what He has done for us and trust Him for all that He can do for us and for His church in our world today!

Let us dream dreams of multitudes coming to salvation. Imagine what it must be like to see three thousand repenting and believing in Christ as Peter did in Acts 2 in one day as a result of one sermon! What he did in the past he can do again!

May the Lord so send forth his saving grace on our land that we may live to see the people flocking to Christ and to the worship of God.

Lord revive us again!

“To thyself convert us from the earthly to the heavenly; convert our rebellious wills to Thee and when we are converted show they countenance that we may know Thee; show thy power that we may fear Thee; show Thy wisdom that we may reverence Thee; show Thy goodness that we may love Thee; show them once; show them a second time. Show them always that through tribulation we may pass with a happy face and be saved"(Savonarola).