If you would turn with me now to
the 80th Psalm, I want to read it
to you.
Psalm numbered 80.
Give ear, O shepherd of Israel, Thou that
leadest Joseph like a flock, Thou that dwellest
between the cherubim's, Shine forth before Ephraim
and Benjamin and Manasseh, Stir up thy strength,
and come and save us.
Turn us again, O God, and cause thy
face to shine, And we shall be saved.
O Lord God of hosts, How long wilt
thou be angry against the prayer of thy
people?
Thou feedest them with the bread of tears,
And givest them tears to drink in great
measure.
Thou makest us strife unto our neighbors, And
our enemies laugh among themselves.
Turn us again, O God of hosts, And
cause thy face to shine, And we shall
be saved.
Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt,
Thou hast cast out the heathen and planted
it, Thou preparest room before it, And didst
cause it to take deep root, And it
filled the land.
The hills were covered with the shadow of
it, And the boughs thereof were like the
goodly cedars.
She sent out her boughs unto the sea,
And her branches unto the river.
Why hast thou then broken down her hedges,
So that all they which passed by the
way To pluck her?
The bore out of the wood doth waste
it, And the wild beast of the field
doth devour it.
Return, we beseech thee, O God of hosts.
Look down from heaven, And behold and visit
this vine, And the vineyard which thy right
hand hath planted, And the branch that thy
mate is strong for thyself.
It is burned with fire, It is cut
down, They perish at the rebuke of thy
countenance.
Let thy hand be upon the man of
thy right hand, Upon the Son of Man,
Whom thy mate is strong for thyself.
So will not we go back from thee?
Quicken us, and we will call upon thy
name.
Turn us again, O Lord God of hosts,
Cause thy face to shine, And we shall
be saved.
God will stamp with his own divine seal
of approval and blessing this reading from his
very own infallible book.
Let's stand for a word of prayer before
the preaching.
O God our Father, We need to hear
thee speak to us tonight.
What a sad and terrible plight we would
be in if we heard ourselves and heard
one another, but did not hear the still
small voice of thyself.
Intensify our experience of thy divine presence.
Intensify the reality that thou art amongst us.
Lord Jesus, walk down these aisles.
Sit beside every worshipper.
Open our hearts to receive the engrafted word
of God.
If thou speak not to us, we will
be like those that go down to the
pit.
O save us from that this night.
Let us hear thy voice.
Let us know thy presence.
Let us see thy light.
For in thy light we shall see light.
To this end I take the promised Holy
Ghost, the blessed power of Pentecost.
To fill me to the uttermost I take.
Thank God he undertakes.
For me and the people of God said,
Amen, Amen.
You may be seated.
The psalm numbered 80.
At the verse 3, Turn us again, O
God, and cause thy face to shine, and
we shall be saved.
And at the verse 7, Turn us again,
O God of hosts, and cause thy face
to shine, and we shall be saved.
And then at the last verse, the verse
19, Turn us again, O Lord God of
hosts, cause thy face to shine, and we
shall be saved.
Note the difference between these prayers.
In the ascription given to God, verse 3,
Turn us again, O God.
In verse 7, Turn us again, O God
of hosts.
And in verse 19, Turn us again, O
Lord God of hosts.
You would be well aware, I'm sure, of
the tabernacle and the arrangements of the furniture
within the tabernacle.
The first verse of this psalm brings us
to the tabernacle and talks about the place
where God dwelt in the tabernacle.
And addresses Him and says, Thou that dwellest
between the cherubim, shine forth, shine forth, shine
forth.
And then in each prayer of verse 3
and 7 and 19, Cause thy face to
shine.
Remember, when you enter the outer court of
the tabernacle, you are confronted with the brazen
altar, but God does not dwell there.
You go further in the outer court and
you're confronted with the lever, but God does
not dwell there.
You enter the holy place and on one
side is the golden candlestick, but God does
not dwell there.
Opposite that candlestick is the table of Shuvrat,
but God does not dwell there.
Before the veal that divides the holy place
from the holiest of all, before that veal
there's the table or altar of incense, but
God does not dwell there.
And then once a year, the hand of
the high priest parted the veal and carrying
with him the precious blood of the sacrifice,
the body of which was burned without the
camp, he approaches to the ark of the
covenant with the overshadowing cherubim and the lid
of the ark, which was a mercy seat.
And there on the mercy seat was the
Shekinah glory, the dwelling place of the Lord
God, Jehovah God.
And so brilliant was that glory that it
went through the fabric of the tent roof
and caused in the daytime the pillar of
cloud, which overshadowed the whole of the encampment.
And at night the cloud became a fire,
lighting up the whole encampment.
But that shining was always upward.
The glory shone upward.
But when you turn over to portions of
scripture, we have a striking change in regard
to that matter.
Turn first of all with me to Numbers
chapter 6.
And in Numbers chapter 6, we have recorded
for us, for our information, the Aaronic blessing,
the blessing that Aaron and his sons were
to use in blessing the children, the six
children of Israel.
The sixth chapter of Numbers and the verse
22.
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak
unto Aaron and unto his sons, saying on
this wise, We shall bless the children of
Israel, saying unto them, The Lord bless thee
and keep thee.
Mark it well.
The Lord make his face shine upon thee
and be gracious unto thee.
The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee
and give thee peace.
Keeping in mind that that was the blessing
which was offered by the high priest.
Turn over now to Leviticus chapter 9.
And in the ninth chapter of Leviticus, we
have a special incident.
When the glory of God, instead of going
up, went out.
And it resulted as a result of Aaron
blessing the people.
The ninth chapter of Leviticus and verse 22.
And Aaron lifted up his hand toward the
people and blessed them and came down from
off the offering of the sin offering and
the burnt offering and peace offering.
And Moses and Aaron went into the tabernacle
of the congregation and came out and blessed
the people.
And the glory of the Lord appeared unto
all the people and there came a fire
out from before the Lord.
The consuming fire of the Shekinah glory and
consumed upon the altar the burnt offering and
the fact which when all the people saw
they shouted and fell on their face.
The glory of God in the face of
Jesus Christ That's what we need.
The glory of God in the face of
Jesus Christ.
But that same glory that brought infinite blessing
and kindled the fire that consumed the sacrifice
of the prison altar also came a second
time.
Nadab and Abihu the sons of Aaron chapter
10 of Leviticus took either of them a
censer and put fire therein and put incense
thereon and offered strange fire before the Lord
which he commanded not.
And there went out fire from the Lord
and devoured them and they died before the
Lord.
One manifestation of this holy fire was blessing.
Another manifestation of this holy fire was wrath
to the uttermost.
Here in this psalm the psalmist calls to
God and he cries to Him Shine forth!
When God shines forth there is a quickening
among the true believing people of God.
When God shines forth God's people are uplifted
their chains are snapped their bondage to sin
is destroyed their hearts are lifted heavenward, homeward,
Godward the spirit of God at work.
But that same fire that burns for the
blessing and the quickening and the resurrection of
the church also burns in judgment against all
false religion and all false fire not of
the Lord's kindling.
And in every movement of the spirit of
God in history there has not only been
the blessing and the uplifting and the strengthening
of the true church but there has been
the curse and judgment of God on evil,
apostasy, sin and wickedness and the violation of
God's commandments.
Now let us turn and look at these
three prayers and the difference between them.
First of all in verse 3 the prayer
is turn us again O God and cause
thy face to shine.
Please notice this petition.
It does not say turn our captivity it
does not say turn us away from our
weaknesses it does not say turn us away
from our darkness it does not deal at
all with our circumstances.
The burden of the prayer is turn us
turn us turn us and God before he
can revive his people has got to turn
them and turn them not in regard to
circumstances but in regard to their whole character
and when God turns the people to himself
the circumstances are quickly dealt with because they
themselves have wholly turned unto God.
We cannot turn ourselves it is a sovereign
act of God that turns us to himself.
Turn us O God thou must take us
thou must seize us we walk the wrong
way we go the wrong road we have
rejected thy way and thy paths and thy
word and thy commandments and we're so entombed
and snared and imprisoned and incarcerated O God
it's an act of omnipotence we need to
break the chains to set us free that
we may be turned unto thee Turn us
O God Notice that he uses the title
O God we have a view of God
here in his aloneness there is nothing added
to the expression it is just turn us
O God God alone God in the infiniteness
of his aloneness God in the infiniteness of
his solitariness O God Turn me When you
come to the next prayer you will notice
that we leave the thought of aloneness and
we come to the thought of creativeness O
God of hosts God the infinite creator the
one who made all things by the word
of his power and the one who upholds
all things by the word of his power
and the one that preserves all things Turn
us You will remember the young man who
served Elisha and one morning he woke early
and he got up and he walked on
to the battlement of the city and he
saw all around the city the chariots of
Syria the enemy of his master and he
came down to where his master was and
he said Alas master the enemy is all
around us There is no possibility of help
and Elisha said Open the young man's eyes
He is blind and God opened and he
saw around about his master the hosts of
the most high God and he saw that
those that were the enemies of Elisha were
few and weak and impotent but those that
were for Elisha were armed with the strength
of the Lord God Jehovah I want to
say to you tonight it will take the
omnipotence of our great creator of God to
bring the church the true church out of
the mess it's in and bring people out
of their love of materialism and their love
of the world and the love of the
flesh and their love for the things that
are devilish in their heart It's a miracle
it's needed a miracle of God and thank
God he can do the miracle and thank
God he can answer the prayer of the
heart that says Turn us O God of
hosts God is mighty to deliver his people
I visit Europe every month for one week
when the European Parliament is in session The
European Parliament is the expression today of all
that characterizes the beasts of the earth In
fact our new building in Strasbourg is built
after the fashion of the Tower of Babel
and it's an unfinished building purposely unfinished and
in fact recently in one of their posters
that they issued was the Tower of Babel
that was their symbol Another symbol of European
unity is the woman riding the beast In
the new building built in Brussels on the
dome of that building there is a life
size painting of the beast and the harlot
riding the beast Symbols of what this is
all about Man has sought to raise his
kingdom and make it reach to heaven and
make it the gate of God but it's
not the gate of God it's the gate
to hell and last month, this past month
of October we were discussing homosexuality and before
us was a directive to elevate homosexual marriages
onto the same plane as Christian marriages and
also to make it lawful that there could
be no discrimination by any church body who
refused to employ a person because they were
homosexual One would have thought there would have
been outrage but there was no such thing
I made a speech on this issue it
was very badly received, I can assure you
because I quoted that such people cannot be
members of the kingdom of God and I
also quoted from Romans chapter 1 and when
I sat down a woman member of the
parliament got up and said we found out
just a moment ago why we must have
this legislation when we heard the awful, filthy
remarks of Ian Feathley as he reeled against
this matter My remarks were the remarks of
the holy book of God and when the
vote was taken it was only 34 members
voted against the elevation of the homosexuals and
500 voted for it that's what's happening today
What can turn that?
Thank God, God the great creator can turn
it He can turn it Things were bad
in Strasbourg in the days of Luther and
Calvin In fact Strasbourg became a refuge for
many of the reformers that had to flee
including both Luther and Calvin Calvin opened the
first reformed church in Europe in Strasbourg but
in their day there were no fundamentalist churches
across the world no Bibles all was darkness
they called it the dark ages but God
still lived and God turned the people and
the great reformation shook the foundations of Europe
It can be shaken again by the power
of God Got to realize that it's the
doing of God Every revival in history is
the doing of a sovereign God and God
is evil and God is willing and God
will turn His people if we constantly cry
to Him for such a turning but then
when we come to the last verse you'll
find that the emphasis is not upon the
aloneness or the creativeness of God it's upon
the redemptiveness of God Turn us again O
Lord In an authorized version that's printed in
small capitals It's Jehovah O Jehovah God of
hosts Creation only needed God's breath Redemption required
God's blood The might of a redemption is
greater than all the might of creation The
greatest work God ever did was the work
of redeeming people The doing of the cross
was the height of His omnipotence His omniscience
and His omnipresence You can't get a higher
power than the power of the cross The
preaching of the cross is the power of
God unto salvation to everyone that believes And
so we turn to the God of redemption
Mighty to see Him Mighty to deliver Mighty
to turn the tide The darkest wave must
obey Him The strongest wind must lie down
at His feet in silence He rules He
reigns He is the King of kings and
Lord of lords And all heaven's power is
at His disposal All power in heaven and
in earth is His So we're calling tonight
to that God Now look at that prayer
and you will find after each petition of
Turn Us there's a little word again It's
a very encouraging word, isn't it?
God has done it before This is not
a new thing with our God This is
something that God has done and will do
He calls us He calls us from the
depths and He calls us to cry to
Him Turn us again Do it again I
wonder do we really believe that God can
give us another reformation Some people seem to
think that with the turn of the 20th
century omnipotence power has faded that God is
dead that God doesn't do things like that
today I don't believe a word of it
I believe God is the same yesterday, today
and forever and I know that things will
get bad and wicked and worse but that
doesn't mean that God doesn't parallel that with
His blessed, saving, regenerating and reviving work and
that's what happened in the day when the
martyrs died It was a dark day It
was a terrible day but it was also
a day of glory After darkness you heard
on Sunday night Light came My, we have
the darkness today but the light can shine
the light of God If you turn over
to that great chapter in Corinthians you will
find what it says there It says that
the light that shines out of darkness 2nd
Corinthians chapter 4 worth marking, worth pondering on
worth taking to our hearts and using it
as an encouragement to us for God who
commanded the light to shine out of darkness
the darkness of the whole world 2nd Corinthians
chapter 4 and verse 6 God who commanded
the light to shine out of darkness Go
back see the abyss see the deep see
a world chaotic but God commanded the light
to shine and what happened?
The light did shine and it says here
He has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ
Where does God's light shine?
God's light shines in the face of the
Lord Jesus Man can bring all his powers
together and do his very best but all
the power of man all the confederate power
of man can do little or nothing in
the terrible issues that are before us but
just a glance of that shining face of
Jesus just one glance of it and the
glory of God will break upon the soul
If you are a child of God you
remember the day when his glory broke upon
you and you were a sinner and you
couldn't rid yourself of your sins oh you
made a mighty effort and you tried the
religious way and you tried the ethical way
and you tried every way and you went
farther into your sin and deeper into your
darkness and you found you were jammed and
you had no power and you were lost
and you were dead in trespasses and in
sin and then the light came and what
happened?
The impossible happened you were freed from the
darkness and what God does when he saves
a man and saves a woman and saves
a boy and saves a girl the miracle
of regeneration the bringing in of the light
God can do that ten thousand million times
over God is not limited He is the
unlimited God How dare we set limits to
the omnipotence of God There he could do
no mighty work it says because of their
unbelief God says we should be praying turn
us again Look at the second part of
this prayer not only the turning of ourselves
to God I was very interested the other
day in reading a sermon by C.H.
Spurgeon and Spurgeon had a tremendous ministry as
you know in the city of London in
the reign of Queen Victoria but after he
had built his tabernacle and after his ministry
had gone on he mourns for the days
when he first came to London and he
says your minister feels that he needs to
be turned more thoroughly to the Lord his
God His prayer shall be God helping him
that he may be more fearless and faithful
than ever before that he may never for
one moment think what any of you will
say in regard to what he utters but
that he may only think what God his
master would say concerning him that he may
come into this pulpit with the resolve that
he cares no more for your opinion with
regard to the truth that if you were
all stoned he only resolves come loss or
come gain by it whatever the Lord saith
unto him he will speak and he desires
to ask his master that he may come
here with more prayer himself than her other
two that whatever he preaches may be so
burnt into his own soul that you will
all know even if you do not like
it that this man is speaking the burning
word of God every preacher needs to pray
like that we need a rekindling of the
Holy Flame within our heart and every person
in the congregation needs to pray that someone
said to John Wesley our preacher is useless
and he's hopeless it's an easy thing to
blame the preacher but Wesley said I'll tell
you what you do pray him on fire
and the whole village will come out to
see him burning so we need to have
fire man in the pulpit and if you
have fire man in the pulpit there'll be
not many snow men in the pew they'll
melt when the fire comes down upon us
we need that melting fire the fire of
the Holy Ghost turn us again O Lord
cause thy face to shine cause thy face
to shine and Spurgeon said further in that
sermon there are people who limit the word
of God and limit its power have you
never heard that under one of Whitefield's sermons
there have been as many as two thousand
saved he was a great man but God
can use the little as well as the
great to produce the same effect why should
not there be souls saved why what keeps
it from happening not God but we are
the stumbling blocks and we can only be
turned into the way if God turns us
into the way cause thy face to shine
revivals in the church are a matter of
record God has sent revivals you can't deny
them God has done great things in this
country of yours the days of Whitefield and
the days of Edwards there were real happening
real changes took place society was changed to
their very depth in 1858 God moved in
this country in 1859 in our own country
moved mightily turned the tide sought to drift
the broken hedges of the church were repaired
the vine that was broken down grew up
again God gave blessing to his church and
to his people and what happened in the
last century can happen today God is still
the same yesterday, today and forever O for
faith to believe him O for faith to
trust him O for prayers that will set
the place on fire O for prayer meetings
that will warm the very heart and the
soul and the energy of God's people and
call them to evangelism with power to reach
the loss for Jesus Christ and at this
same time that God sends his blessing he
sends the same fire to curse that which
is evil and my we need a demonstration
of that power we need to see God
vindicating his holiness it grieves me when I
hear my Lord's name taken in vain it
grieves me to see the society that hates
him the society that crucifies the Christ and
puts him to an open shame I pray
God that we will see his holiness vindicated
that the fear of the Lord will come
down upon districts that man will cry bent
double with agony of heart before God that's
what God can do and he wants to
do and he tells us we should be
praying to him cause thy face to shine
revivals are commenced continued and completed by God
alone he turns the tide and he alone
can turn the tide what a harvest revival
brings the harvest of souls being saved the
promotion of love in the church truth glorified
taken out of the gutter and enthroned in
glory holiness abounding and the rejection by the
church of the world the flesh and the
devil and the glorifying of his sons as
the doctrine of the gospel is adorned by
the life and separation and holiness of the
people of God turn us again O Lord
and we shall be saved turn us again
and cause thy face to shine and we
shall be saved when I was a young
preacher and I'm no longer young I know
that but I feel young and after all
you're as young as you feel but I
used to use an illustration it was an
illustration concerning the suffering of the Savior this
mother sat one day and her child little
girl sat upon her knee the little girl
looked up into her mother's face and she
said, Mammy and she touched her mother's face
she said, I love your face and she
touched her mother's eyelids she said, I love
your eyes and she put her hand across
her mother's lips and she said, I love
your lips I really love you I love
your face and then she took up her
mother's hands and the mother's hands were scarred
broken fingers were missing and she said, I
don't love your hands I really hate your
hands they're ugly I don't love your hands
and the mother said to her dear let
me tell you a story when you were
just a babe and you were caught and
you were sleeping one morning I got an
urgent message that one of the neighbors was
in sore trouble and I thought you'd be
alright and I ran down the street to
help my neighbor I wasn't long there till
a terrible cry reached my ears and when
I came out the road was packed with
people and they were all running to our
house and when I got there the firemen
were there and they wouldn't let me in
and I tore my way through them and
I went up the stairs and I took
all the blankets I could get and I
wrapped them round you and I brought you
down that fiery stairway but my hands were
burned to the bone my fingers had to
be taken away some of my fingers had
to be taken away after it it was
a terrible ordeal I had that's why my
hands are not lovely and the little girl
with the ears running down her cheeks she
picked up the hands of her mother and
she said I do love you and then
she kept she took the hands and she
kissed them and she said I love your
hands most of all for it was those
hands that saved my life the face of
Jesus what did we do to it?
we spat upon it we tore the hairs
from off it we battered it we crowned
it with thorns we turned our back upon
him there was no beauty that we should
desire he is despised and rejected of men
the battered, bleeding, disfigured face of Jesus his
visage was marred more than any man and
his form more than the sun's but oh
I want to look into his face tonight
and I want to say Lord Jesus I
know your face was scarred I know it
was crowned with thorns I know my sins,
my cruel sins were your chief tormentors I
know that I spat upon your face and
battered it I took the reed and drove
the thorns into your brow but Lord Jesus
I love that face that bore the scars
for me to save me from hell and
oh Lord Jesus I want to see something
tonight I want to see the glory of
God in your face turn us again oh
Lord God of us and cause thy face
to shine and we shall be saved what
do you need?
you need to be saved from your backsliding,
your coldness your lack of love for the
Lord believer your lack of earnestness your lack
of zeal when we have done all we
are unprofitable servants I know it but God
wants to stir our hearts and our hearts
can only be stirred when he turns his
face towards us do you remember Peter?
hard Peter he just used words of blasphemy
dissociating himself distancing himself from the blessed Savior
who had saved him and the Lord turned
and looked upon Peter and he went out
and he wept bitterly oh that the Lord
would look on us tonight smite our love
for sin and the world may we weep
the tears of bitterness and may we know
what Peter knew the blessed restoring of God
and of his love turn us again oh
God turn us again oh God of us
turn us again oh Lord God of us
cause thy face to shine from between the
cherubim shine forth shine forth oh God and
thy glory shall dispel the darkness and after
the darkness there shall be light let's bow
our heads Heavenly Father we thank thee for
thy good and thy gracious word we thank
thee for this cry that thy was told
us to cry to the highest heaven to
keep on crying until the light shines and
we see the face of Jesus turn us
again oh God turn us again oh God
of us turn us again oh Lord God
of us and
we shall be saved answer that cry of
our hearts this night for Jesus sake and
everybody said Amen