THE LORD RESTORING
Rob W McClean
Psalm 69: 4 (from “then”)
This Psalm is one of the suffering Psalms as we have been taught. It brings out holy feelings. We have been taught that in this one the Lord is entering into the feelings of Israel. When the Lord was here He felt things as the godly in Israel would have felt things. The verse says, “They that hate me without a cause”, and later we see other aspects brought out in the Psalm that relate to what happened on the cross. I thought of this expression, “then I restored that which I took not away”. I think the thought in the taking away is quite a violent thought, robbery; and the restoration, wonderful grace. I wondered what we might understand by these things.
What was it that was taken away? There would be a number of things that we could think of. We have spoken of those early pages in Genesis, and I was thinking what was taken away then, man’s innocence. That, in itself, is not to be restored, but what was taken away was God’s ability to have that relationship with man, walking in the garden in the cool of the day and conversing with man, and man hid himself; there was that which had been taken away; and the Lord came to restore that. It was not so much in His life here, but in His death and His sufferings. We read of it in that wonderful section in Philippians 2, “and that the death of the cross” v 8. There are many aspects about the work on the cross. There is the work of salvation which we treasure and speak of often, the special theme of the glad tidings. Then there are these other aspects. Our brother has spoken of those that are blessed, and the four aspects of it which are most blessed and most gracious. It would bring in exercise as to whether we might be offended, whether we might be washing our robes. I felt the edge of that as our brother brought it before us. But here we have the Lord restoring “that which I took not away”: the restoring character of the work of the Lord. Sin had come in to sully God’s creation, and had brought in distance (and we might suffer because of sin and because of sins), but it says of the Lord that He suffered for sins that were not His own. That would have been involved in the work which was accomplished in the restoration. It was not God that took away His relationship with man; it was what the enemy and fallen man had done.
Another thing we could think of was what the earth had become in Noah’s day. I think a contrast has been made: Enoch was a witness, but Noah was a preacher. Noah suffered through the judgment that consumed those that had offended God. So Noah waits until God indicates that he should come out of the ark, for God had “shut him in”, Gen 7: 16. Then he makes that sacrifice of a sweet odour to God, chap 8: 21. I wondered if that had the character of restoration, restoring something that he had not taken away.
But the Lord is ever distinct. We could consider the way that Israel had been taken up on the line of promise, how they had failed on the line of responsibility and the law, forfeited the blessings on that account. God did not take the blessings away: they were forfeited. But He goes back to His promises, and Israel is restored on that basis. We are brought into blessing as sinners. We have been touching a little on that in Romans, the severe way that the apostle Paul opens up the case against the sinners, against the Gentiles and us all, but we are taken up. God did not cause the Gentiles to be as they were; they gave God up, and then “God gave them up to a reprobate mind”, and various things it speaks of, Rom 1: 28. But the Lord has restored that; those that are not offended in Him, those that put their trust in Him, those that, as we have been reminded, “have not seen and have believed”, John 20: 29. What a restoration has come in with the work of the Lord! We often consider His healing work, which we have touched on recently in Luke, and which culminates with the verse our brother has read, as to the way the Lord speaks of these things in that wonderful tender message, “Go, bring back word to John of what ye have seen and heard: that blind see, lame walk, lepers are cleansed, deaf hear, dead are raised, poor are evangelized; and blessed is whosoever shall not be offended in me”, chap 7: 22-23. This was a great restoring work, restoring that which He had not taken away; the healing of man. But the work goes on; it is not now exactly a physical thing, although we would be wrong to discount true healing: the Lord is always able. I do not speak of what some people speak of as faith healing, but I mean what is true and genuine. There is a moral work going on, a moral restoration of that which the Lord took not away. I just feel for myself that I need to get some extra impression about that. What has been restored as the hymn writer says:
For Thou hast brought again to Him
More than by man He lost
(Hymn 431).
The restoration is a greater matter than the loss of what has been taken away. Part of that is because of who has done it, our blessed Lord Jesus. He is the One who has restored, restored for God so that there is that wonderful company that will be here when the Lord comes. The dead in Christ shall rise first, and we the living who remain will all be caught up together. We are in no way to anticipate those that have fallen asleep! What a restoring work that will be! Restoring beyond the fallen condition, and beyond the original condition, to conditions of glory! Sometimes people talk about pieces of equipment and old cars and things, that they have been restored to better-than-new condition. Well, in Christianity we are restored to a new condition that is far above and beyond and better than anything that has ever been before! It is because we are in Christ, it is because He has done it; “then I restored that which I took not away”.
What blessed grace that has operated and will operate to bring us to the most favoured position: a place at the tree of life. There is exercise involved in that, as to the washing of the robes, but surely we would be attracted to this One. What a place we have. Not anything that we could do ourselves but what this great Restorer has done!
May we be encouraged for His Name’s sake.
Word in meeting ministry in Grimsby
17th September 2020