Introduction
Western civilization, in general, and American society, in particular, is in a period of moral and spiritual decline. The seeds of secularism and Darwinism which were sown for generations are now producing a harvest of confusion, contention, and hate. We have lost our former confidence in the goodwill and sincerity of our opponents. Many look at their neighbors with envy, anger, and malice. History is being rewritten, words are being redefined, and policies are being enacted which advance an ideological agenda that is anti-God, anti-Christ, anti-freedom, anti-human flourishing.
The state of our society is both influencing and reflected in the visible Church as well. We see the fruit of generations of theological liberalism and carnal religion, and the harvest is bitter and unbiblical. Many churches are empty in every sense of the term. There is no gospel, no inerrant and infallible Scripture, no reverence, no life, and soon--like the cathedrals in Europe--there will be no worshippers in the pews. Other churches are massive, full of people and energy and programs, but devoid of truth, beauty, and goodness. Their ministries are modeled on successful businesses, and that is what they are. Pastors are chosen not for their godliness or theological competence but for their organizational skills and their ability to give a speech prepared and plagiarized by a team of writers. Their worship services are a strange combination of rock concert with a TED talk in between musical sets. Attenders are excited, but not edified. They are entertained, not enlightened.
I think it is fair to say that even among more conservative, biblical, evangelical, and even Reformed churches, we are traveling a hard road, and it looks like the next several miles are going to be even rougher. The Southern Baptist Convention recently elected a president who is soft on critical theory, a friend to the social justice movement, and who insists he is a complementarian, which is why when his wife preached at their church, she did so under his authority.
The next week the PCA’s General Assembly made some good decisions in attempting to oppose the rising tide of critical race and gender theory within their denomination, but those decisions were only the start of the battle, not the end of it. The Assembly was punctuated by multiple elders standing up to identify as same-sex attracted Christians--a category which certainly exists but which should be a reason for shame and renewed repentance rather than pride in adopting such temptations as a part of personhood. In one sermon at the PCA’s GA we learned that the prophet Jonah’s primary sin was ethnocentrism and nationalism. Progressives must be delighted that with the development of Critical Theory we can finally properly interpret Bible texts we never could have understood even an hundred years ago.
I thank God to have been able to serve at our own denomination’s General Assembly during the last two weeks, and I am thankful that we are not yet struggling with the kind of issues already in the open in the SBC and PCA. But I would be untruthful if I said I was encouraged. Even if our challenges in the OPC are far less severe than those in other communions, we are naive if we imagine we do not have serious challenges that need to be addressed right now.
After I returned home from General Assembly, our family read Psalm 80 together, and I realized this was the text I needed to preach on this Sunday rather than what I had planned. This is a prayer for restoration and revival. Not the superficial sort of so-called revival that is the result of emotional manipulation rather than true Spirit-wrought conviction. No, Psalm 80 is a plea for the Lord to come and save his people, turning them back to himself by means of the saving work of the Son of his right hand. It is a prayer for restoration, that God would fulfill the promise of his benediction to make his face to shine upon [us] and be gracious. Psalm 80 is the counterpart to Psalm 23. The Lord is my Shepherd, and here we pray for the Shepherd to correct his wayward flock. It is an appropriate prayer, for our nation, for the Church as a whole, for our denomination, and for other churches. It may be an appropriate prayer for where you are right now. When do we not need to ask God to come and save us? We always need his restoring and enlivening grace.
Background and Overview of the Psalm
Psalms 79 and 80 are very similar in setting and substance. Psalm 79 describes Jerusalem in ruins, and Psalm 80 describes the judgment of the northern kingdom, sometimes referred to by the prophets as Joseph since Ephraim and Manasseh (Joseph’s sons) were the two largest tribes in that land. Asaph was the author of both psalms, so we expect they were written in the same historical period. There have been various views on the specific circumstances of their writing. Calvin refers this psalm to the destruction of Israel by Assyria in 722 BC, and this seems most likely. Judah was also under severe threat at that time which might explain the correlation with Psalm 79. But we cannot know for certain, and it is not necessary to know in order to rightly interpret and apply it.
“Some think it was penned upon occasion of the desolation and captivity of the ten tribes, as the foregoing psalm of the two. But many were the distresses of the Israel of God, many perhaps which are not recorded in the sacred history some whereof might give occasion for the drawing up of this psalm, which is proper to be sung in the day of Jacob's trouble, and if, in singing it, we express a true love to the church and a hearty concern for its interest, with a firm confidence in God's power to help it out of its greatest distresses, we make melody with our hearts to the Lord.” --Matthew Henry
Psalm 80 was not included in the Church’s prayer book so that all generations could lament the destruction and deportation of the northern kingdom. It was included so that we could, along with the faithful in Asaph’s day and in every generation since, lament God’s righteous judgment of his Church, to remember that just as he judged his people then, so he will continue to discipline and chasten his people today. Discipline is unpleasant; it is painful and hard. But it is for our good, and God gives us prayers like Psalm 80 to know how we ought to sing when the Church is in distress, even if that distress is caused by our own sinfulness, compromise, and worldliness.
Yahweh is the Shepherd of His People (1-2)
The psalm begins with a prayer that God, who is the Shepherd of his people, would shine forth. Specifically, it is Yahweh who dwells between the cherubim. Not Yahweh as represented by Jeroboam’s golden calves. Not Baal or the multitude of other gods whom Israel worshipped prior to her judgment and exile. It is the Shepherd of Israel who leads Joseph like a flock. The people of Israel are like sheep, not lions, not bulls, not people of sound and independent minds. They are sheep: dumb, weak, and defenseless, a flock of animals meant to be led and which only survive under the care of a strong and faithful shepherd. The psalm recalls the consecration of both the Tabernacle and Temple when the radiance of God’s glory shone so brightly the priests could not even enter the Holy Place. Now the Church cries out in sung prayer: O Shepherd of Israel… shine forth! We long to see that glory once again. We desire the radiance of God’s holiness to so fill and illuminate the sacred space that God’s priestly people cannot disregard or stand before it. We want the Lord to manifest his presence and power in such a way that the whole Church stands in awe.
The meaning of the reference to Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh in v.2 is uncertain. Augustine thought the three should be interpreted in terms of the meaning of their names: Ephraim being doubly fruitful, Benjamin being son of the right hand/strength, Manasseh being forgetting as in Joseph forgetting his former life and sorrow. Matthew Henry suggests these are named because in the wilderness these three tribes would march behind the tabernacle when Israel moved camp (Num. 2:17-24), thus creating a picture of God’s people assembling behind God’s sanctuary to march with the God whom they worship leading the way.
The psalm implores God to stir up his strength and come to save his people. We know we are only overrun by enemies if the Lord ordains and allows it, and he will only do so with a good purpose, for good reason. We will see that reason more clearly later in the psalm, but we know from Israel’s history why he would allow them to fall into distress. Israel had become worldly and corrupt. Their worship was idolatrous. Their behavior and values were taught by the Canaanites and not by the Law of God. Israel’s only hope was that God, in his power and majesty, would arise to save his people from their foes.
In order for that to happen, Israel needed to learn again that Yahweh is the Shepherd of his people. He leads the Church like a flock, and she must follow. He dwells between the cherubim, not in a golden calf or a shrine on the high places, not in the academy or seminary where educated men presume to teach doubt concerning God’s Word, not in the secular sphere where experts preach that men are verbal monkeys, that racism can be diagnosed based on skin tone, and that genitalia are irrelevant in identifying sex and gender. You have to know who God is, where he is to be found, and where we ought to be in relation to him. He is the God of strength, glory, and authority. He dwells in the Most Holy Place, and like Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh our proper place is behind him, following him, not running away from him, not working against him, and certainly not contradicting him.
We are to be in a posture of submission and worship. God made you sheep, not lemmings. Sheep have a shepherd, and that keeps them from running over a cliff. Lemmings have no master. They are caught up in the craziness of the crowd. In less than sixty years our country has moved from the idea that men are to be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin to corporations now paying tens of thousands of dollars to have experts lecture their white employees on implicit bias and bigotry assessed not on the basis of their behavior but based solely on the fact that they are white. Lemmings. Last week the American Booksellers Association issued an apology for sending samples to independent bookstores advertising Abigail Shrier’s Irreversible Damage calling their distribution of the book “a serious, violent incident that goes against ABA’s ends policies, values, and everything we believe and support. It is inexcusable.” Lemmings. God did not make you a lemming. He made you a sheep. Sheep need to be led, but not by other sheep, and certainly not by the furry little idiots making a beeline for the precipice. You need a Shepherd, and you need to know where he is to be found and where you ought to be in relation to him.
The Prayer for Restoration (3, 7, 19)
Psalm 80, like all the psalms, are prayers to be sung. The ancient Church (and many sectors of the Church today) chanted psalms and hymns before the development of modern harmonies. In vv.3, 7, and 19 there is a refrain which repeats the key petition of the prayer: Restore us… cause Your face to shine, and we shall be saved! The only thing that changes in these lines is the Name of God: O God (3), O God of hosts (7), O Yahweh God of hosts (19). There is amplification of the divine Name as the psalm progresses. He is God, the God of armies, Yahweh the God of armies! This is the One to whom we look for help and salvation.
The refrain prays for restoration through God turning his face toward his people. In order to understand this, we have to know something about how the Bible speaks of God’s face. The Lord looks his people in the face when he enters into relationship with them. The LORD talked with you face to face on the mountain from the midst of the fire (Deut. 5:4). He spoke to Moses face to face (Ex. 33:11; Num. 12:8). Israel had a face to face relationship with Yahweh (Num. 14:14). Facing his people means looking with love and favor. If he hides his face, his people will fall into trouble.
Ps. 13:1-2: How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, Having sorrow in my heart daily? How long will my enemy be exalted over me?
Ps. 30:6-7: Now in my prosperity I said, “I shall never be moved.”
LORD, by Your favor You have made my mountain stand strong;
You hid Your face, and I was troubled.
On the other hand, if he sets his face against someone, they will come under terrible judgment.
Ps. 34:15-16: The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, And His ears are open to their cry.
The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, To cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.
Jer. 21:10: “For I have set My face against this city for adversity and not for good,” says the LORD. “It shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.” (cf. Jer. 44:11-12)
But the prayer of Psalm 80 leans upon God’s covenant mercies and the promise he will not utterly reject or abhor his suffering servant, whether Christ or the Body of Christ.
Ps. 22:23-24: You who fear the LORD, praise Him! All you descendants of Jacob, glorify Him, And fear Him, all you offspring of Israel! For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; Nor has He hidden His face from Him; But when He cried to Him, He heard.
God calls us to seek his face, i.e. to seek his presence and favor by living in covenant with integrity and sincerity. We are to know that we live in the presence of God, all our lives spent Coram Deo.
Ps. 27:8-9: When You said, “Seek My face,” My heart said to You, “Your face, LORD, I will seek.” Do not hide Your face from me; Do not turn Your servant away in anger; You have been my help; Do not leave me nor forsake me, O God of my salvation.
The Shepherd of Israel restores our soul (Ps. 23:3), and Psalm 80 is asking him to do so. We need to be healed, our sins forgiven, our hearts mended, our minds enlightened, our hands and feet trained for righteousness after having learned the habits of unholiness and disobedience. We are asking God to turn his face towards us because we know that we are in distress because he has turned his face away. Lord, look at us! We need You. We want You to be in our lives. We want to live in Your presence. This is why the psalmist often calls the Lord to search him and test him. We want God to be in our business. We don’t want to hide anything from him. Shine the light of truth into our hearts and lives. Expose what we have not seen in ourselves, and bring us to conviction and contrition. The prayer of restoration is a prayer for joy to return, the joy of the Lord that is our strength, the joy of salvation that is God’s gift to his people. We have been ruined and rotted away by our sin, but in this prayer we sing that the God of might and glory would restore us again.
Why Would God Be Angry with His People’s Prayers? (4-6)
We expect God to be angry with our sins and with our enemies, but the psalmist describes the Lord as angry against the prayer of [his] people. Because of Israel’s disobedience, the Lord would no longer hear their prayers. Prayer is not a human right, it is a covenant privilege. God is not obligated to listen to you or me or anyone else. The only thing that obligates him is his own promise. He promises to hear the prayers of his saints, but if we refuse to listen to him, he will no longer hear our prayers and bless us.
Ps. 66:18-19: If I regard iniquity in my heart, The LORD will not hear. But certainly God has heard me; He has attended to the voice of my prayer.
Pr. 28:19: One who turns away his ear from hearing the law, Even his prayer is an abomination.
Is. 59:1-2: Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, That it cannot save; Nor His ear heavy, That it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear.
It’s not as though God cannot hear. Hearing refers to listening, accepting, and answering. This is what God says he will not do so long as we remain in our sins.
Unrepentance forfeits any right to prayer. Unrepentant people cannot pray. They are proud, without remorse, and God will not hear them, even if they offer prayer (Lk. 18:9ff). God will not grant our prayers when we ask with false motives, for our own glory instead of for his, for selfish gain rather than in surrender to his will (Jas. 4:3). He will not listen when we pray hypocritically, making a show of religion devoid of sincerity, when we pray so that others will commend us rather than in a simple desire to communicate praise, thanks, and petition to God (Mt. 6:5). He will not answer prayers when we offer them to a false god or to Yahweh in an idolatrous way. This is what we see in Israel’s history, and is it not reflected in the Church today? How many cry out to Mary and the saints for blessing when Jesus shed his blood so that they might plead for grace not through other intercessors in glory but from the glorified Son of God alone!
The Vine of God, Planted and Trampled (8-13)
The psalmist goes on to recite the history of God’s goodness to his people. He brought them out of bondage in Egypt, gave them the promised land, and planted them there to flourish and grow. The glory of God was seen in the prosperity and expansion of his people. Their success was his work and not their own. But now the people were in great distress. Israel’s walls were broken down, she was plundered by foreigners, boars uprooted her from the ground, and wild animals devoured what God had given to her. And why? Because of sins which are implied throughout the psalm but only become explicit in v.18. Psalm 80 is not a prayer of confession, per se, but is a plea for restoration in the aftermath of judgment which God had sent upon his people.
Like OT Israel, the Church is a redeemed people, planted in a wilderness, protected from foes and dangers all around her, and destined to grow and prosper until the land is full of glory.
“The church is a choice and noble vine; we have reason to acknowledge the goodness of God that he has planted such a vine in the wilderness of this world, and preserved it to this day.” --Matthew Henry
But what will be the case if the Church today becomes like the world, just as Israel did in the OT? The Lord will not destroy the Church. Jesus promised the gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church he purchased with his blood (Mt. 16:18). But this promise is to the catholic Church, not to every local instantiation of that Body. The Lord threatened to remove Ephesus’s lampstand unless they repented. He threatened violent judgment of a false teacher in the congregation at Thyatira. He warned the saints in Sardis that their group was mostly dead and what remained was ready to die. He was so disgusted by the church in Laodicea that he said he would spit them out.
The Church must remember who she is and where she was and that where we stand now is maintained only by grace. We were dead in our sins and trespasses when God made us alive, and he raised us up with Christ to sit in places of glory. But if we disregard his grace and refuse to heed the voice of our Savior, we too will find our hedges broken down and our inheritance plundered.
The Hope of Revival (14-18)
Israel had been overtaken by his enemies, but she would not be overcome. There was still hope, not for Israel as a political entity, but for the Israel of God in the outworking of God’s plan of grace. The vine which God had planted had been cut down and burned, but the Lord could revive it. He is the God of life, the God of resurrection, and he could bring new life to Israel out of ashes.
The Scriptures often use the analogy of a vineyard and vine to describe God’s people. The image is found in Isaiah 5, and Jesus uses the same figure for illustration in John 15. The vineyard is an organic reality, not merely an institutional one. It emphasizes the living nature of the people of God, that we are planted and nurtured by the vinedresser, and that we are intended to bear fruit for the glory of God. But living things can also be malnourished, choked by weeds, poisoned, barren. The vineyard will not bear good grapes on its own. It must be cultivated by one with wisdom for growing plants, and it must respond to the care and nurture it is given. It might seem impossible for a vineyard that has been burned to ever grow again, but if the Lord can raise a multitude to life in a valley of dry bones, then he can bring life to the vineyard that had been burned and cut down.
The hope was in the son of man at God’s right hand. Most of us probably assume this must be Christ, but interestingly, Calvin identifies this with the Church. But these are not two different interpretations, but two facets of the correct interpretation. The Church is the son of God which stands at his right hand. That is how Scripture speaks of us. But we are only that because the Only Begotten Son of God became also the Son of Man in order to be our Redeemer. This is another example of the principle of totus Christus. The psalm is preeminently about Christ and the hope of restoration we have in him. But everything that is true of him as the glorified Son of Man is also true, by grace, of those whom he has redeemed, the Church, the glorious son of God. We do not choose between Jesus and the Church. Because Jesus is the Son of Man, we are the sons of God.
The issue that has been implicit throughout the psalm comes to the forefront in v.18. Then we will not turn back from You; Revive us, and we will call upon Your Name. There is the issue. Israel is in distress because she turned away from God. The prayer for restoration is a prayer for repentance and revival. It is not merely, “Lord, take away our troubles and bless us again.” It is, “Lord, renew our hearts, revive our faith, restore our souls, that we might worship You again.”
Pastoral Application: Revival, Repentance, Reformation, and Restoration
At the risk of causing offense by being too specific, what hope is there for Southern Baptist churches, or the PCA, or the OPC, or ROPC, or any of us and our households? What hope is there for America when it is considered violence merely to advertise a professional book which says it is harmful to give hormone therapy and cut off sex organs in children? It might be easy to despair. There are ordained ministers in conservative, Reformed denominations that identify as gay (but celibate) Christians. Should we expect God to bless us when we do such things? If we do, then we are dangerously naive or willfully and recklessly stupid.
Matthew Henry has, as so often, a very helpful and pastoral reflection on this psalm.
“They are conscious to themselves that they have gone astray from God and their duty, and have turned aside into sinful ways, and that it was this that provoked God to hide his face from them and to give them up into the hand of their enemies; and therefore they desire to begin their work at the right end: "Lord, turn us to thee in a way of repentance and reformation, and then, no doubt, thou wilt return to us in a way of mercy and deliverance." Observe, 1. No salvation but from God's favour: "Cause thy face to shine, let us have thy love and the light of thy countenance, and then we shall be saved." 2. No obtaining favour with God unless we be converted to him. We must turn again to God from the world and the flesh, and then he will cause his face to shine upon us. 3. No conversion to God but by his own grace; we must frame our doings to turn to him (Hos. v. 4) and then pray earnestly for his grace, Turn thou me, and I shall be turned, pleading that gracious promise (Prov. i. 23), Burn you at my reproof; behold, I will pour out my Spirit unto you. The prayer here is for a national conversion; in this method we must pray for national mercies, that what is amiss may be amended, and then our grievances would be soon redressed. National holiness would secure national happiness.” --Matthew Henry
During the PCA’s GA I heard an elder call the denomination to repent (not mourn, not pray about, but repent of) the growing violence against Asian Americans. Was this because the PCA has endorsed or practiced or protected those who commit acts of violence against Asian Americans? No. Might I suggest instead that the PCA repent of the fact they are allowing elders to serve who think such a call to repentance is biblical and appropriate?
Listen again Matthew Henry: “They are conscious to themselves that they have gone astray from God and their duty, and have turned aside into sinful ways, and that it was this that provoked God to hide his face from them and to give them up into the hand of their enemies; and therefore they desire to begin their work at the right end.” Are we conscious that we have gone astray? Do we recognize the need to pray for revival, repentance, reformation, and restoration? Do we see the gravity of our situation, and are we earnest in crying out to God? Or are we largely indifferent?
I realize there are some who are talking as if the sky is falling. That is not my intention. We should not be captive to fear, anxiety, anger, or resentment. We should have an optimistic view of what God is doing and will do in this world and a cheerful militancy with regard to the downgrade in our culture and churches. Clickbait articles and videos that are little more than rage porn are not helping us. The wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God (Jas. 1:20). But if you can sing Psalm 80 without thinking about our present world and the state of the Church, then you aren’t paying attention.
We need revival, not the kind with altar calls, invitation songs, and sawdust trails, but the kind that comes when the Spirit of God falls upon a persecutor and makes him an apostle. We need to sing Revive Thy Work, O Lord and Arise, O God, and Shine and A Mighty Fortress is Our God and Psalm 80 with penitent faith, sincere hearts, and loud voices. This is the need of the hour, a penitent Church, a praying Church, and an expectant Church that looks for the salvation of Israel. --JME
