PSALM 80 - Shining Mercy
Summer Psalms 2023 • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 43:52
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· 11 viewsIf we would see our people delivered from the evil that they are suffering, we must pray that God will grant us repentance
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Introduction
Introduction
My senior year in college, I spent weekends in Jersey City, New Jersey with a church-planting team working to evangelize the North Indian caste Hindu population there. Every Friday afternoon after class I would take the PATH train from Langhorne and get off at Journal Square in Jersey City, and then walk several blocks down JFK Boulevard down to the church where I was staying with another member of the team. The most striking memory of those afternoons was looking across New York Harbor and seeing the golden afternoon sun gleaming off of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. As I would walk along that street, there was no way I (or anyone else) could have imagined the horror that would be visible from JFK Boulevard twelve years later on September 11th, as the towers were struck by those planes and collapsed with a roar into heaps of burning rubble.
Even twenty-two years later, it doesn’t take much to conjure up memories of the fear and grief and apprehension of those days, does it? Everyone in this room old enough to pay attention at that time knows exactly where they were when the events of 9/11 took place, and every one of us can remember the shock of the enormous sense of loss and grief of that terrible day.
And yet—as hard as it is to believe—there were some people standing on rooftops along JFK Boulevard that day that actually cheered the destruction of the World Trade Center. Retired Jersey City police officer Peter Gallagher, who was a sergeant at the time, said he cleared a rooftop celebration of 20 to 30 people at a four-story apartment building with an unobstructed view of Lower Manhattan, in the hours after the second tower fell. (https://www.nj.com/news/2015/12/exclusive_jersey_city_cop_residents_say_some_musli.html Retrieved 08/10/2023)
Now, I don’t share that item because I want to vilify Islamic fundamentalism or give us any excuse whatsoever to hate or despise Muslims; but I want the shock of that kind of attitude to register with us this morning. To witness such horrible destruction and massive death toll calls for anything but celebration. It calls for mourning and sorrow—it calls for crying out to God for deliverance.
Psalm 80—the last psalm in our Summer Psalms series for the year—is a psalm that was most likely written at the time of the Assyrian invasion of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, sometime in the 720’s B.C. There is some external evidence that points in this direction (the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, titles this psalm “Of the Assyrian”, for instance). And there are several internal clues in the psalm itself—it refers to the “Shepherd of Israel” (the Northern Kingdom) as well as prominent tribes of the Northern Kingdom of Israel:
Psalm 80:2 (ESV)
2 Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh, stir up your might and come to save us!
The psalm is written in the tradition of Asaph—bold and unflinching in its description of the destruction of the northern Kingdom, and just as unflinching in its rock-solid, stubborn certainty that God will be faithful. This is a psalm that shows us how to pray for a nation that is in the middle of suffering the desolation of the wrath of God over its sin.
And that’s why we need to hear this psalm today. Because as we are watching the towers of our nation’s pride and godless self-confidence crumble to the ground, we are all too likely to look on with detachment or cool doctrinal logic— “Well, that’s what you get for disobeying God!” And God forbid, but there are times we are even tempted to celebrate the collapse of the failed experiment of secularism that we are currently witnessing in our nation.
So we need God’s Word to be our guide in these days—we see here in this psalm that Jerusalem mourned over the destruction of Samaria; even though they were rivals and bitter enemies at times, they were still kinsmen; they were still brothers. We need to learn from this passage of Scripture how we are to intercede for our estranged kinsmen according to the flesh; how to pray for our countrymen as we see God’s hand laying heavily upon our nation.
So how does Psalm 80 teach us to pray for a nation that is currently experiencing the desolation of the wrath of God? As usual, we can begin understanding this psalm by taking note of its structure; in this case we see a repeated prayer three times in these verses, and each time, the prayer becomes more urgent:
Psalm 80:3 (ESV)
3 Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved!
Psalm 80:7 (ESV)
7 Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved!
Psalm 80:19 (ESV)
19 Restore us, O YHWH God of hosts! Let your face shine, that we may be saved!
The Hebrew phrase translated by the ESV as “restore us” can be rendered in a slightly different way that helps us get to the heart of this prayer: “Turn us again, O God...” The idea here is that if this people are to turn, to repent, to turn back to God, He is the One Who has to do it in them!
And so the way I want to say it for us this morning—what we can learn from Psalm 80 about how to pray for a nation that is coming under the wrath of God for its sin—is that
Unless God TURNS us AROUND, we will never TURN at all
Unless God TURNS us AROUND, we will never TURN at all
As we read through this psalm, there are two major metaphors that the psalmist uses to address God—as a shepherd, and as a vinedresser. And so as we follow those two metaphors through this psalm, we see in the first three verses that the psalmist is
I. Pleading for the Shepherd’s FAVOR (Psalm 80:1-3)
I. Pleading for the Shepherd’s FAVOR (Psalm 80:1-3)
Look with me at the first three verses:
Psalm 80:1–3 (ESV)
1 Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock. You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth. 2 Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh, stir up your might and come to save us! 3 Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved!
The first thing that the psalmist does as he looks on the horrible desolation of his estranged countrymen in the northern Kingdom is to cry out to God and
Call on His MERCY (v. 1)
Call on His MERCY (v. 1)
We see this in verse 1, where he cries out to God who is “enthroned upon the cherubim”—the cherubim sat atop the Ark of the Covenant in the Temple in Jerusalem; their wings covered the mercy seat, upon which God was said to reside. When the psalmist is calling out to God who is enthroned on the cherubim, he is crying out for Him to shine forth His mercy.
He does not look on the wrath of God poured out on Samaria—the seat of the wicked and idolatrous northern kingdom of Israel, the people that had spent unbroken centuries of wickedness and idolatry and rejection of their covenant with YHWH—the psalmist doesn’t look at them and say, “Yeah! Go get ‘em God! Make them pay for their sin!” When he sees the Assyrian army descending on wayward, rebellious Israel, his first cry is, “Mercy!”
He cries out for God to be merciful to his estranged countrymen, and he expresses his
Trust in His MIGHT (v. 2)
Trust in His MIGHT (v. 2)
Psalm 80:2 (ESV)
2 Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh, stir up your might and come to save us!
As we had noted earlier, Ephraim was historically the largest and most militarily powerful of the tribes of Israel. Manasseh was the tribe that lent their considerable military power to Joshua at the initial conquest of Canaan, and Benjamin (who had stayed in the southern Kingdom of Judah at this time) was the ancestral home of Saul, the first king of Israel.
And so surely at least part of what the psalmist is saying here is that “None of our own military might is going to save us; only Your hand is mighty to save!”
We say it often enough here that it is a familiar statement, but nonetheless crucial to understand—politics will not save our country: Politics needs to get saved. We are not going to elect our way out of this mess; we are not going to legislate our way out, a series of Supreme Court victories are not going to save us. If God does not turn us around, we are not going to turn at all.
As we pray for a nation suffering under the judgment of God, we pray after the pattern of the psalmist here in Psalm 80—asking for the Shepherd’s favor, and in verses 4-7,
II. Lamenting the Shepherd’s ANGER (Psalm 80:4-7)
II. Lamenting the Shepherd’s ANGER (Psalm 80:4-7)
Psalm 80:4 (ESV)
4 O Lord God of hosts, how long will you be angry with your people’s prayers?
One of the most chilling verses in all of the Old Testament comes at the end of 2 Chronicles, when the city of Jerusalem was finally swept away by King Nebuchadnezzar (two centuries after the events of Psalm 80 took place). The inspired author summarizes the the final destruction of the Kingdom of Judah this way:
2 Chronicles 36:15–16 (ESV)
15 The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. 16 But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord rose against his people, until there was no remedy.
How can anyone read those verses and not tremble at the prospect of ignoring and scoffing and despising the Word of God spoken through His servants so utterly that at last there is no remedy, there is nothing that can be done for them.
The psalmist here says that now that God’s wrath was descending, the people were crying out to Him—but it was too late to repent; their cries now did nothing but anger Him. And the psalmist had to acknowledge that
He has delivered their MISERY (vv. 4-5)
He has delivered their MISERY (vv. 4-5)
Psalm 80:5 (ESV)
5 You have fed them with the bread of tears and given them tears to drink in full measure.
The God who had fed His people manna from heaven in His mercy is now feeding them the bread of their own tears. The God who split the rock in the wilderness to bring water to His people is now watering them with their own tears.
The psalmist is under no illusions as to why they are suffering—it is God Himself who has turned from their protector and provider into their tormentor. Repentance involves confessing that we deserve punishment from God’s hand; that He is entirely just to cause us misery over our sin. The psalmist understands that God has delivered their misery, and he confesses in verse 6 that
He has decreed their HUMILIATION (v. 6)
He has decreed their HUMILIATION (v. 6)
Psalm 80:6 (ESV)
6 You make us an object of contention for our neighbors, and our enemies laugh among themselves.
He doesn’t just chafe at the humiliation that they are receiving from the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Moabites and Edomites—he acknowledges that this humiliation is God’s doing. As we saw earlier in our study of Psalm 75, when a people reject God and rebel against Him, He causes them to reel and stumble like a drunkard—He causes them to become a laughingstock among the other nations of the world; no one takes them seriously anymore. And the psalmist says that this is God’s doing—He repays a nation that spends decades or centuries treating Him like a joke by causing them to become a joke in the eyes of the world.
This prayer in Psalm 80 is a cry out to God for His mercy—it is a realization that if God does not turn a nation, it will not turn at all.
Starting in verse 8, the author picks up the second major image of God in this psalm—God is the vinedresser that planted Israel:
Psalm 80:8 (ESV)
8 You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it.
And in these verses the psalmist is
III. Lamenting the Vinedresser’s JUDGMENT (Psalm 80:8-14a)
III. Lamenting the Vinedresser’s JUDGMENT (Psalm 80:8-14a)
As the psalmist intercedes for his people, he confesses his people’s utter dependence on YHWH, that their sin of rejecting Him is compounded by the fact that He is the One who blessed them--
They did not CREATE their own ABUNDANCE (vv. 8-11)
They did not CREATE their own ABUNDANCE (vv. 8-11)
Psalm 80:9–11 (ESV)
9 You cleared the ground for it; it took deep root and filled the land. 10 The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches. 11 It sent out its branches to the sea and its shoots to the River.
The imagery of this vine God planted is simply fantastic—a grapevine that grows so big that mountains and cedar trees are shaded by it! As the psalmist prays for mercy from God, there is no hint of pride left; he humbly acknowledges that every good thing that ever came about through his nation was because of God’s providential blessings! There was no hint of “Make Israel Great Again” because they had no role in making Israel great to begin with! The psalmist has no illusions that they were at all exceptional in any way, or more capable or more wise or more ambitious or industrious than other nations—they didn’t “pull themselves up by their own bootstraps” because God was the One raising them up all along!
The psalmist confesses that Israel did not create their own abundance—and so their rejection of God and disregard for His covenant, their ingratitude and prideful arrogance in that God-given abundance means that
They DESERVE their own DESOLATION (vv. 12-13)
They DESERVE their own DESOLATION (vv. 12-13)
Psalm 80:12–13 (ESV)
12 Why then have you broken down its walls, so that all who pass along the way pluck its fruit? 13 The boar from the forest ravages it, and all that move in the field feed on it.
The psalmist laments that the very same vine that God planted and prospered is now the object of His wrath to destroy. God is breaking down the Northern Kingdom’s defenses to allow the Assyrians in to raid and plunder and kill. The image of an unclean animal—a boar—is a depiction of the Gentile nation of Assyria ravaging through the Land promised to Israel. The Promised Land from which Joshua and Caleb brought back massive clusters of grapes is now a ravaged and torn grapevine being decimated by Gentile invaders. And this desolation is coming from the hand of YHWH Himself!
Psalm 80:12 (ESV)
12 Why then have You broken down its walls, so that all who pass along the way pluck its fruit?
There is no room for pride or self-reliance or exceptionalism for a nation that is suffering under the judgment of God for its rebellion. The psalmist confesses his nation’s utter dependence on God—if He does not turn them, they will never turn at all.
Psalm 80 is a demonstration of how to pray for a nation that is suffering the judgment of God—as this Asaph prays for his estranged countrymen of Israel, he pleads for the Shepherd’s favor, he laments the Shepherd’s anger, he laments the Vinedresser’s judgment, and in the remainder of the psalm we see him
IV. Pleading for the Vinedresser’s FAVOR (Psalm 80:14b-19)
IV. Pleading for the Vinedresser’s FAVOR (Psalm 80:14b-19)
Psalm 80:14 (ESV)
14 Turn again, O God of hosts! Look down from heaven, and see; have regard for this vine,
God is the One Who prospered them, God is the One who has humiliated them, and so God is the only One who can restore them! And consider the specific way that the psalmist asks that God restore his nation in verses 15-17:
Psalm 80:14–17 (ESV)
14 Turn again, O God of hosts! Look down from heaven, and see; have regard for this vine, 15 the stock that your right hand planted, and for the son whom you made strong for yourself. 16 They have burned it with fire; they have cut it down; may they perish at the rebuke of your face! 17 But let your hand be on the man of your right hand, the son of man whom you have made strong for yourself!
Our New Testament inclination is to see the phrase “son of man” and “man of Your right hand” and make a beeline to Christ the Son of Man, the One Who sits today at the Father’s right hand. And of course we find the ultimate fulfillment of this psalm (along with every verse of the Old Testament) in Christ. But to say that these verses apply immediately to Christ is to do violence to the psalmist’s original intention.
Because when this Asaph-psalmist wrote this psalm, he was pleading with God
That He might STRENGTHEN their RULERS (cp. 1 Tim 2:1-3)
That He might STRENGTHEN their RULERS (cp. 1 Tim 2:1-3)
This is a prayer that God would bless Israel by turning their king—the “son of man” back to God again. That as the king repents and calls on God, he will then lead his nation to do the same.
And lest we think that this was just an Old Testament exhortation, the Apostle Paul gives the same instruction to Timothy as he led the churches in his care:
1 Timothy 2:1–3 (ESV)
1 First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, 2 for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. 3 This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior,
This means—at a minimum—that some Christians need to spend less time posting humiliating Biden memes and more time humbling themselves by asking God for Biden’s repentance.
The psalmist didn’t complain before God that the king was a senile old buffoon who had allowed the Assyrians to eat their lunch; he acknowledged that it was the sin of his people that had caused God to break down their defenses, cause them to become a laughingstock and be destroyed by their enemies! And his prayer of repentance included a prayer that YHWH would grant their rulers repentance so that they would be able to lead with God-honoring, obedient wisdom!
If God does not turn us, we will not turn at all—it is only as we plead for the Shepherd’s mercy, plead for the Vinedresser’s favor—that we have any hope whatsoever of seeing our people turn again to God. The psalmist prays for the king’s repentance and strength, and pleads in verse 18 that God would grant His prayer for his king and his nation
That they might MAGNIFY His NAME (v. 18)
That they might MAGNIFY His NAME (v. 18)
Psalm 80:18 (ESV)
18 Then we shall not turn back from you; give us life, and we will call upon your name!
When that deliverance comes—when God answers the psalmist’s prayer for repentance for his people and they turn back to Him—the psalmist says that all of the glory for their deliverance will be to God alone!
The psalmist ends his plea for his estranged countrymen with the fullest expression of his prayer in verse 19:
Psalm 80:19 (ESV)
19 Restore us, O YHWH God of hosts! Let your face shine, that we may be saved!
There would have been no way for a faithful Israelite to hear that prayer sung in this psalm—a prayer that God’s face would shine forth from the Mercy Seat—without thinking of the blessing that Aaron taught Israel in Numbers 6:24-26:
Numbers 6:24–26 (ESV)
24 YHWH bless you and keep you; 25 YHWH make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; 26 YHWH lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
If the mercy of God’s face does not shine upon a people to turn them back to Him, they will never turn at all. And in fact, when we consider the history of Israel and Judah in the Old Testament, we see that, though they did not repent and were carried off into captivity as punishment for their rebellion, God did in fact promise that He would one day show them His mercy, and in a way and a fulness and a glory that this psalmist could never have dreamed of!
The Shepherd of Israel Himself descended from glory and took flesh and blood in order to be not just a Good Shepherd, but a Good Shepherd who became a sacrificial Lamb on behalf of His people!
John 10:11 (ESV)
11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
The Vinedresser who planted Israel in her Land sent His only begotten Son to become the Vine in which His people would find their only source of life:
John 15:1–2 (ESV)
1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
And the Presence that inhabited the Mercy Seat over the Ark, enthroned between the cherubim, found its most glorious manifestation in the face of Mercy Himself, Jesus Christ:
2 Corinthians 4:6 (ESV)
6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
So Christian—how shall we pray for our estranged countrymen today? How shall we intercede for a people and a nation that is falling under the hand of the wrath of God? We plead the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ! He is our Vine, He is our Shepherd, He is our Son of Man who is seated at the right hand of the Most High—and it is only through His perfect obedience, innocent death, powerful resurrection and authoritative coronation as King that our nation (or any nation!) has hope of shelter from the just and timely wrath of God over our sin.
So, Christian—plead the blood of Christ for our nation. Repent of the spiritual pride and smug superiority that says they deserve it—because, apart from the work of Christ in your life in salvation, you deserve it every bit as much.
Repent of the notion that all we need to do is get a couple of good reliable senators and representatives, another conservative Justice for good measure, and a Jehu back in the White House to drain the swamp—the only remedy for our nation is if God should turn us again.
The only way that this nation will turn around is if God does the turning. There is no American ingenuity that will get us out of this mess—because it wasn’t mere American ingenuity that brought us our initial prosperity! There is no reform or legislation or judicial ruling that will get us out of the fix we are in—it is only the Gospel of the Son of Man, the Good News of the mercy of God to a rebellious people purchased by the blood of the Good Shepherd who was the Lamb of God. If this nation will ever turn around, it is because this message of this Gospel is faithfully proclaimed by the people of God, and because this people call on the Name of Jesus Christ in repentance.
Call on this Name for your nation Christian—declare this Name as the only hope for your estranged countrymen. Call on this Name for your own life, Christian, when God’s chastening hand rests on you in order to turn you from the sin that threatens you—He disciplines you in love:
Hebrews 12:6 (ESV)
6 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”
And if you do not know Christ as Savior, won’t you call on this Name to deliver you from the penalty that you are under for your sin against Him—His face is shining with mercy toward you today, for He has brought you here to hear His gracious invitation: Come away from your sin, come away from your pride and self-centered desire to magnify yourself; come away from the false promises of a world that will only lie to you and destroy you with its snares and deceptions. Do not turn away from the Face of Shining Mercy that calls you today: Come—and welcome!—to Jesus Christ!
BENEDICTION:
Numbers 6:24–26 (ESV)
24 The Lord bless you and keep you; 25 the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; 26 the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace, through Jesus Christ our Savior. AMEN
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION:
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION:
What does the evidence in the text and the title information of the psalm suggest as the historical context of Psalm 80? How does this context help us apply this psalm to our own situation in our country?
What does the evidence in the text and the title information of the psalm suggest as the historical context of Psalm 80? How does this context help us apply this psalm to our own situation in our country?
Read verses 3, 7 and 19. What does the repetition of this prayer tell us about the purpose of the psalm? How do these three verses differ from each other? Why do you think the psalmist worded each repetition differently?
Read verses 3, 7 and 19. What does the repetition of this prayer tell us about the purpose of the psalm? How do these three verses differ from each other? Why do you think the psalmist worded each repetition differently?
How does this psalm teach us to respond to the judgment of God on our nation? How do the images of God as a shepherd and a vinedresser point us toward Jesus Christ as the hope for our people?
How does this psalm teach us to respond to the judgment of God on our nation? How do the images of God as a shepherd and a vinedresser point us toward Jesus Christ as the hope for our people?