A Prayer For Mercy.

A PRAYER FOR MERCY.

Psalm 85:1-7.

The Prayer begins, not with personal desires, but by recalling to mind God’s past favours (PSALM 85:1-3).

We must learn to “count our blessings, name them one by one,” as the hymn writer exhorts us, to raise up our ‘Ebenezers,’ our “stones of help” as the word means, saying with Samuel of old, “Hitherto hath the Lord helped us” (cf. 1 Samuel 7:12). This will temper our prayers with gratitude, and also fuel our faith as we recognise that whatsoever we ask in accordance with His will, God is able and willing to perform: that He is able to do ‘exceeding abundantly above all’ (how many superlatives are there in Ephesians 3:20?) ‘all that we ask or think.’ How so? ‘According to the power that worketh in us.’

Then, having thus encouraged himself - God, after all needs no reminding - the Psalmist applies for God’s grace in the midst of his, and the Church’s, present troubles (PSALM 85:4-6).

Such Biblical phrases as, ‘Turn thou us, and we shall be turned’ (cf. Lamentations 5:21); “in wrath remember mercy” (cf. Habakkuk 3:2) - and the like - are not inappropriate in our petitioning the Most High. Here the drift is that God would turn us to Him, recognising our inability to turn of our own accord: and that, in turn, He would turn away his anger.

Which comes first? Well whatever we may think, it is always God who makes the first move. ‘But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved)’ (cf. Ephesians 2:4-5).

Such considerations, even in the midst of his humble appeal, excite the Psalmist and should thus stir us up, to a holy fear and a godly hope that, as in Psalm 130:4 - ‘There is forgiveness with thee [Lord], that thou mayest be feared.’

Often as we look at the contemporary Church scene, we are inclined to ask, ‘Can these bones live?’ (cf. Ezekiel 37:3). Well, yes: in the vision they stood up, and came together, and then, when the breath of God came upon them, they lived.

We need such reviving as only the Spirit of God can give, and so our appeal is ever toward the God of our salvation: “Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?” (PSALM 85:6). There is the motive for our prayer for revival: that God’s Name might be magnified and glorified! But, when all is said and done, we must fall back with the Psalmist upon the simple appeal for mercy (PSALM 85:7).