The Psalms Of Korah – Psalm 85 Part 2 - God's Wonderful Restoration In Peace And Mercy Series

MESSAGE – THE PSALMS OF KORAH – PSALM 85 PART 2 - GOD'S WONDERFUL RESTORATION IN PEACE AND MERCY

Psalm 85 For the choir director. A Psalm of the sons of Korah.

In Part 1 we looked at God’s mercy and protection and Restoration and the way God brings back a failed Christian to Himself. This beautiful Psalm continues.

Psalm 85 v 5 Will You be angry with us forever? Will You prolong Your anger to all generations?

Psalm 85 v 6 Will You not Yourself revive us again that Your people may rejoice in You?

Psalm 85 v 7 Show us Your loving-kindness, O LORD and grant us Your salvation.

I want to draw attention here to the plural. This is an incorporated prayer; the psalmist is including all the nation of Israel (or maybe all the righteous in the nation) as he prays. It is a concern to him that God’s anger continues, even to the possibility that it will continue to generations in the future. The people had sinned but had they repented? That is the crucial factor, for if the nation had repented unreservedly, God’s anger would have become God’s blessing and acceptance. Who is a pardoning God like Thee or who has grace so full and free?

People expect to have the pleasure of God while they continue in sin. This is nothing more than an appalling lack of understanding of the holiness of God. People think their sins have nothing to do with God, or that God could not care less about them. They are so wrong. In the Gentile world it may appear that God in heaven, way up there somewhere, is not at all interested in what people do, or with their sin,[ in doing it. It could not be further from the truth. These might be the silent years with Gentile nations, and even with Israel, but in the psalmist’s time, God had His nation under His control, and if they rebelled, which they frequently did, then His displeasure would be certainly know.

In verse 6 the request is that God would revive the nation again so the people would have rejoicing in God.

It is a plea for god’s mercy. This request must contain both recognition (of the cause), [verse 5], and a plea for revival in the heart of each one, [verse 6], because the nation can not be revived apart from all the individuals in it. Let us consider the Valley of Dry Bones in Ezekiel 37. Was it possible to revive those old bleached disorganised bones? The bones could not revive themselves and they only started to move once the breath passed over them, the breath of the Holy Spirit. Those bones represent Israel and there is coming a day when Israel will be revived. It happens during the Tribulation when God calls the Jews to Himself in salvation. That is what the psalmist is praying for even though he did not know it. God did answer that prayer for revival, and the psalmist saw it in part, but it still waits there in the nation’s future, but it is going to happen on a worldwide scale when the bones are made alive; what appears lifeless for God, He will shake and it comes alive again.

There can be no true rejoicing in sin and rebellion; in apostasy and indifference. In fact all that causes depression and misery and a lack of fulfillment. A Christian outside the will of God with stubborn, unrepentant sin lacks true joy and peace. The world may step in to grant a substitute, but it is as substantial as a blown soap bubble that bursts with just one prick and vanishes away. That principle would apply to every individual from the time of Adam onwards, for God created us according to His handiwork, and the aftermath of sin played out in Adam and Eve, because they then hid from God because peace and joy had gone.

“Revive us again” can only happen after repentance and honesty in confession. “Revive” means to bring back to life again, or to infuse life in something that has become lifeless. The dead bones will certainly be revived. Many Christians need to be revived. Many churches need to be revived. It is time to wake up from sleep. Day is at hand. The great revivals of the world past saw dead churches empowered with new life and purpose but sadly, like the Welsh Revival, they don’t last after two or three generations.

Personally, I feel the great evangelistic campaigns have finished. God used these for a few hundred years but from around 1990 onwards they have faded. I believe the world, and certainly Australia, is now closed and hardening towards destruction, but the opportunity is still there for revival among God’s people when they take the faith seriously, repent from worldliness and sin and rededicate themselves to God. It might have to take persecution for that to happen. If the Lord tarries, persecution will come to Australia for anti-Christian hatred is growing very quickly.