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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Psa_85:1-2. LORD, thou host been favourable unto thy land: thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob. Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people, thou hast covered all their sin. Selah.
Let us think of what God has done for his people. He has been very favorable to us in years past. He has lifted up the light of his countenance upon his chosen ones, and made them glad. “Thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob.” We were in captivity once, exiles far off from God and home; but he has led our captivity captive, and we are now in bondage no longer, blessed be his name! Note again what the psalmist says: “Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people.” What a joy that is! Forgiven sin is enough to make us sing to all eternity. If sin be pardoned, thou hast a mass of mercy in that fact too great for thee to estimate its value. “Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people.” See how the inspired writer puts it again: “Thou hast covered all their sin,-hidden it, put it out of sight with that divine covering of the atonement, which has hid for ever, even from the eyes of God, the sin of his people. There is a happy memory for us,-to see what God has done for us. Let us bless his name for it. Now comes another happy memory.
Psa_85:3. Thou host taken away all thy wrath: thou hast turned thyself from the fierceness of thine anger.
“Thou didst stay thy bow even after it was bent. Even when thy right arm was bared for war, thou didst make peace for us. ‘Thou hast turned thyself from the fierceness of thine anger.’ When it burned like fire, yet didst thou stay it through the great atonement of Jesus “Christ our Lord.” Now comes in a prayer;
Psa_85:4. Turn us, O God of our salvation, and cause thine anger toward us to cease.
“Thou hast done all this for thy people; now do this for us who fear lest we are not thy people,-comfort us. Turn us, and then take thine anger from our conscience, and let us be at peace with thee.” How I wish that many in this Tabernacle would pray even now, “Turn us, O God of our salvation, and cause thine anger toward us to cease!” It is the prayer of a church that is under a cloud; it is the prayer of a nation that is suffering for its sin; it is the prayer of a sinner who sees what God has done for his people, and who entreats the Lord to do the same for him.
Psa_85:5. Wilt thou be angry with us for ever?
“Surely we have not got into eternity yet. Lord, do not have eternal anger toward us. ‘Wilt thou be angry with us for ever?’ Wilt thou not hear our prayers? Wilt thou not have mercy upon us?”
Psa_85:5. Wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations?
“Shall our children also suffer? Wilt thou not have pity upon them?”
Psa_85:6-7. Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee? Shew us thy mercy, O LORD, and grant us thy salvation.
“We are such poor blind creatures that we cannot see; yet, O Lord, show us thy mercy, make us see it, reveal it to us; and grant us thy salvation? It must be a free grant, a grant of grace, a grant of love, therefore, grant us thy salvation.” Listen to this eighth verse.
Psa_85:8. I will hear what God the LORD will speak:
“I will be silent. I have spoken to him; now I will hear what his answer is. I will hold my ear attentive to listen to his voice.” O my dear hearers, when you are willing to hear God, there are good times coming to you!
Psa_85:8. For he will speak peace unto his people, and to his saints:
There is peace, peace, nothing else but peace for them.
Psa_85:8. But let them not turn again to folly.
For if they do, the Lord will speak to them by rods and chastisements. They that get God’s peace must mind that they keep it. They must walk carefully, or else they will break the peace, and they may themselves get broken in pieces. “Let them not turn again to folly.”
Psa_85:9. Surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him;
When you honour him, reverence him, worship him, his salvation cannot be far away from you.
Psa_85:9-10. That glory may dwell in our land. Mercy and truth are met together;
At the cross is their meeting-place. There, you shall see God’s mercy and God’s truth embracing each other over the great sacrifice of Christ. Mercy and truth seem set at variance in the sinner’s case till they are reconciled by the blood of Jesus.
Psa_85:10. Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
It seemed impossible that God should be righteous and yet be at peace with sinners; but Christ has taken both parties by the hand, and at Calvary they kiss each other. God is as righteous as if he were not gracious, and as gracious as if he were not just. Yea, his justice and his peace are each of them all the brighter because of the other.
Psa_85:11. Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven.
Carpeted with truth, and canopied with righteousness; what a wonderful scene is before us! Truth is coming out of the ground, as though it had been a dead thing, which begins to live, and leaves its tomb; and righteousness is throwing up the windows of heaven, and leaning out to look down upon the sons of men. “Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven.” What a wonderful meeting this is of truth and righteousness,-truth lifting up her hand to heaven, and righteousness putting down its hand to earth!
Psa_85:12. Yea, the LORD shall give that which is good; and our land shall yield her increase.
It is all well when it is well with us in our relation to God. When we are reconciled to him, then all things are reconciled by that fact.
Psa_85:13. Righteousness shall go before him; and shall set us in. the way of his steps.
Lord, hear the prayer of this Psalm, and answer it to us, for Jesus sake!
Amen.
This exposition consisted of readings from Isa_43:22-28; Isa_44:1-8; and Psalms 85
In my brief comments upon this Psalm, I shall not feel bound to keep to the immediate occasion for which it was written, but shall seek to find a use for it in the present circumstances of God’s saints.
Psa_85:1. Lord, thou hast been favourable unto the land: thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob.
Whenever you are in a low state of mind or heart, remember God’s past lovingkindnesses. Recall the record of what he has done for his people in ages long gone by, for he is the same God for ever and ever, and, therefore, what he has done in the past, he will do in the future. As the wise man said, “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the Sun.” It is certainly so concerning God’s dealings “Lord thou hast been favorable unto thy land,” even when it was stoned with ‘sin’ “thou hast brought Back the captivity of Jacob.” even when that captivity was brought upon the people by their own fault. Lord, bring back my captivity! Be favourable unto me; Deliver me from my spiritual declensions, and give me back my joy and peace:
Psa_85:2. Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people, thou hast covered all their sin. Selah.
What a sweet subject for our meditation we found, last Lord’s-day morning, in those words of the psalmist, “Who forgiveth all thine iniquities”! Now, if God has indeed blotted out the sin of his people, at a plea this is to use with him for all that we still need from him! Will he pardon us, and yet leave us to perish? Will he pay such a ransom price as the blood of his well-beloved Son to set us free from the bondage of sin, and then will he not help us even to the end? Will he not lift up our heavy heart, and revive our drooping spirit? Ah! that he will if we know how to plead his former mercy, and to urge upon him that, because he has forgiven our iniquity, and covered all our sin, he should now heal our diseases, redeem our life from destruction, and crown us with loving-kindness and tender mercies.
Psa_85:3-4. Thou hast taken away all thy wrath: thou hast turned thyself from the fierceness of thine anger. Turn us, O God of our salvation, and cause thine anger toward us to cease.
“Let us have a special application of the general mercy. Thy wrath to thy children has passed away; so let us no longer sit down, and cower beneath it, fearful of its terrors. Lord, bring us back to thee! Our heart desires conversion, but thou alone canst give it to us to the full. Turn us, O God of our salvation, and we shall be turned.”
Psa_85:6. Wilt thou be angry with us for ever? Wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations?
“Thou mightest well do so if thou wert dealing with us only according to the strict requirements of thy righteous law; but we are thy children, Lord; and is a father always angry with his children? Thou hast forgiven us our iniquity; and, therefore, the great cause of thy wrath against us is gone. Now, O Lord, reveal thy love to us! Let us not any longer be under the sense of our guilt, or feel the absence of the joy and peace which thou givest unto those whom thou forgivest.”
Psa_85:6. Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?
“We have got down very low, great God. We have been, these last six days, mixing with the world, and perhaps we have forgotten thee. Come to us, we pray thee. Give us fresh life; ‘revive us again.’ Many a time hast thou, spiritually, raised us up as from the grave’s mouth; wilt thou not do it again? All that thou hast done for us in the past will be lost if thou dost not continue thy mercy to us. ‘Wilt thou not revive us again?’ Thou lovest to see us happy, and thou art thyself the happy God; oh, make us happy, too,
by reviving us, ‘that thy people may rejoice in thee’!”
Psa_85:7. Shew us thy mercy, O LORD, and grant us thy salvation.
So far, the Psalm is a prayer. Now the psalmist seems to stop, and wait for the answer to his supplication. Beloved, always do that when you pray. When you have spoken to God, wait for him to speak to you. Do not let it appear that your prayer needs no answer; but really expect a reply to it, and then, in patience and in silence, wait for it.
Psa_85:8. I will hear what God the LORD will speak: for he will speak peace unto his people, and to his saints: but let them not turn again to folly.
For, if they do, their darkness will return, and they will again have to mourn their Lord’s absence. Peradventure, the rod will fall more heavily upon them, and their souls will sink into a deeper despondency. For a Christian to be a fool once, is a sad thing; but for him to turn again to folly, is a multiplied form of iniquity which God will surely punish.
Psa_85:9. Surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him; that glory may dwell in our land.
O beloved brethren and sisters, lay hold on that salvation which is nigh unto you, and exalt in it; and, even now, let your spirits feel the glow of his glory shining in your soul!
Psa_85:10. Mercy and truth are met together;
But only at one place,—the cross of Calvary, where Jesus died; there, “mercy and truth are met together;”
Psa_85:10. Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
Through Christ’s death, sin has been punished, sinners are saved, God’s law is vindicated, and the depths of his mercy are displayed: “Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.”
Psa_85:11. Truth shall spring out of the earth;--
Promises, which lay hidden in God’s Word, like seeds buried in the earth, shall spring up before our eyes, like flowers carpeting the earth with beauty: “Truth shall spring out of the earth;”—
Psa_85:11. And righteousness shall look down from heaven.
As if so pleased with the state of things brought about by the atoning sacrifice of Christ that it flung up the windows of heaven to look down and see this great sight: “Righteousness shall look down from heaven.”
Psa_85:12-13. Yea, the LORD shall give that which is good; and our land shall yield her increase. Righteousness shall go before him; and shall set us in the way of his steps.
May God thus revive us, by his Holy Spirit, for Christ’s sake! Amen.