◄ Psalm 80:18 ►














Pulpit Commentary Homiletics
Going Back From God
Psalm 80:18
S. Conway
This psalm, this verse, is a penitent confession that Israel had been guilty of this sin, and it is a prayer for pardon and restoration. But such backsliding did not cease with Israel. We have here -

I. A CONFESSION OF THE SIN. Israel needed to make such confession. But so do others now.

1. Apostates, like Demas, Judas, etc.

2. Those who know God has called them, but from fear of man refuse to confess him.

3. Those who have confessed him, but live inconsistent lives.

4. Those who, after special seasons of nearness to God, go back to indulge their old sins. These, and yet others, need this confession.

II. A PORTRAYAL OF ITS MISERY. (See vers. 5, 6, 12, 13, 16.) The backslider is the most miserable man on the face of the earth. He can never forget that he has known the better way, and has chosen the worse.

III. AN ASSURANCE OF ITS PREVENTION.

1. Such prevention needed; for going back is so easy, so secret, so perilous, so shameful, so condemned of God.

2. And is sure, by the grace of God turning us again, leading us into the possession and retainment of the fulness of his grace, and giving us the joy of his salvation. - S.C.

Biblical Illustrator
So will not we go back from Thee.
Psalm 80:18
Apostasy from God
T. Cruse.
I. WHEREIN LIES THE TRUE NATURE OF APOSTASY FROM GOD.

1. Every failure and defect in the exercise of grace is not to be reckoned as an apostasy. The soul may faint and flag in the pursuit of God, and yet not be carried off so far as to steer a contrary course.

2. Every positive discovery of corruption in the actual commission of sin is not apostasy. A man may halt and slip, yea, he may stumble, and fall, and yet not go back.

3. Apostasy from God includes not only a deviation in the life, but an alienation of the heart (Psalm 95:10; Acts 3:39; Psalm 44:18).

4. Apostasy from God is really an undoing of all the good which we have done. It is ending in the flesh, after we have begun in the Spirit; when our faces have been towards Zion, and our doings framed to turn to God; this is a revoking and disannulling of all, and driving towards hell.

II. OF WHAT CONCERNMENT AND IMPORTANCE IT IS TO BELIEVERS TO RE SECURED AGAINST SUCH APOSTASY.

1. How much they are in danger of it, viz. if left alone, and abandoned to themselves.(1) Grace in us is very weak.(2) Corruption in us is very active (James 1:14). There is folly enough remaining in the wisest and best of men to prevent and mislead them.(3) The temptations which come upon us are very numerous. Every place, every condition, every employment, every relation is full of them.

2. How much danger they incur by apostasy, if they should be left to be guilty of it.(1) They must needs at the present lose all comfortable communion with God.(2) They can never see the kingdom of God, unless they remember from whence they are gone back, and return and do their first works.(3) If they come back to God again, it must be by very bitter and sorrowful repentance.

III. HOW IS THE STRENGTH OF CHRIST OUR SECURITY IN THIS CASE?

1. Omnipotence belongs to Christ, on the account of His Godhead, and this shall be exerted on the behalf of them that believe, as there is occasion.

2. Christ was anointed with power, as Mediator, the improvement whereof is not to His own advantage, but the advantage of those that believe in Him (Isaiah 63:1; Luke 1:69).

3. Christ hath destroyed the power of the devil by a power superior to him. This is meant by His dividing the spoil with the strong (Isaiah 53:12).

4. Christ, by the matchless efficacy and merit of His blood, hath purchased for us confirming grace, and the perpetual presence of the Spirit with us.

5. Christ's prevailing intercession secures to us the needful, actual succours of grace, while we are here in this world.

IV. WHY HATH GOD ORDERED IT SO, THAT BELIEVERS SHOULD BE SECURED AGAINST APOSTASY BY THE STRENGTH OF CHRIST?

1. This agrees with God's general design of heaping all the glory possible upon Jesus Christ.

2. This suits with God's design of grace in our eternal election; for we are chosen in Christ (Ephesians 1:4). Therefore it is fit that we should be also preserved in Christ (Jude).

3. It is necessary that we should be secured against apostasy by the strength of Christ, because He is the First and the Last in our sanctification.

4. It is necessary that Christ should secure us in our way to glory, because it is His business to receive us into the possession of that glory at the close of all (John 14:3).

5. The wisdom of God is hereby seen in a most shameful baffling of the devil.

6. Believers could not have a better security than that whereof there hath been a visible experiment in the Person of Christ Himself.

V. USES.

1. This lays open the ground of the devil's enmity against Christ, which hath been always most extreme and implacable.

2. It is inexcusable folly for any one in the world to lean to his own arm.

3. Make no promises of perseverance in your own strength.

4. Look to your faith as the principal grace, which contributes to your establishment (Isaiah 7:9).

5. Do not arrogate the honour of your standing in Christ, and abiding with Christ, in the least measure to yourselves. Let Christ have all the glory of your setting out, and holding out; let Him have it now, and let Him have it at the last.

(T. Cruse.)

Backsliders and their guilt
D. Macfarlan, D. D.
I. POINT OUT THOSE WHO MAY BE JUSTLY CHARGED WITH GOING BACK FROM GOD.

1. Those who, having been once instructed in the Gospel, and having enjoyed the benefits of its means of grace, and continued for some time professors of Christianity, have afterwards renounced the faith through an evil heart of unbelief. The religion of Jesus presents insurmountable objections to fraud, deceit, or dishonesty — to the indulgence of sinful passions or of unlawful pleasures; yet they are attached to their worldly enjoyments, and, desirous of shaking off the restraints of religion, they begin by impugning particular doctrines, and imagine that the precepts of Christianity are not so strict, or its denunciations against sin so very positive as they seem, and fancy that they shall find some way of escaping punishment not commonly understood, some easier way than passing through the strait gate which Christ has pointed out By degrees they go on to deny religion altogether, and to magnify for themselves difficulties into serious objections.

2. Those who shrink from an open and fair avowal and confession of their faith. They are afraid lest they be accounted puritanical, singular, narrow-minded or superstitious; they dread the laugh, the ridicule, the contempt of weak and worthless mortals whom they cannot possibly esteem, more than the reproofs of a disapproving conscience, more than the awful displeasure of God.

3. There are many who, from pure fickleness and love of change, are carried about with every wind of doctrine; many have no root in themselves, and therefore become the deluded followers of every new instructor, of every arrogant pretender to superior knowledge or holiness.

4. There are also not a few who, influenced by worldly attachments and connections, accompany and follow their companions and friends, and separate themselves from others with whom they have had some trifling quarrel, or conceived something wrong. Those who thus act go in direct opposition to Christ's admonition. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God."

5. Those who act habitually inconsistent with their religious profession. A licentious and immoral Christian, a profane and ungodly believer, a false and deceitful follower of Jesus, a lover of God who is cruel or unjust to men, are characters which, by the very words of which they are expressed, involve a contradiction, and cannot by possibility have any existence.

6. They may be more especially charged with going back, who return to the wilful commission of sin, after having been engaged in the ordinances of devotion, namely, those professing Christians who have made public and solemn declaration of love, obedience, and attachment, to Jesus, and of a determination to act faithfully as Christians.

II. LET ME ENTREAT YOU TO AVOID FOLLOWING THEIR EXAMPLE, because —

1. It is weak and contemptible. In the most ordinary affairs of life can you ever have confidence, can you ever have esteem for the fickle, changeable, and irresolute?

2. It is very sinful to go back from God; for dishonesty and unfaithfulness to engagements are uniformly regarded as criminal, and are generally punished. Shall he, then, who vows, escape the vows he has made before heaven?

III. LET ME ENTREAT YOU, THEN, TO FORM THE RESOLUTION HERE EXPRESSED BY THE PSALMIST, that you will not go back from God. Whatever your difficulties or trials, whether pleasures allure or dangers intimidate, it is yours to follow unmoved the great Captain of your salvation. Think of the recompense set before you — the crown of life set before him who shall be faithful unto death.

(D. Macfarlan, D. D.)

Quicken us, and we will call upon Thy name
The quickening necessary to prayer
Homilist.
Man requires spiritual quickening before he can pray. He must be quickened —

I. With the sense of the DIVINE PRESENCE. Who can pray without the vivid realization of the Divine personality, the Divine presence, and the Divine entreatability?

II. With the sense of MORAL OBLIGATION. Who will pray without feeling the strongest convictions of duty to love, serve, and honour the great God?

III. With the sense of SPIRITUAL NEEDS. Sense of dependence underlies all prayer, all religion, all worship. This sense which, alas! is deadened within us, must be quickened before we can pray.

(Homilist.)

People
Asaph, Benjamin, Joseph, Manasseh, Psalmist
Places
Jerusalem
Topics
Praise, Quicken, Revive, Turn
Outline
1. The psalmist in his prayer complains of the miseries of the church
8. God's former favors are turned into judgments
14. He prays for deliverance

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Psalm 80:18

     5534   sleep, spiritual

Psalm 80:1-19

     8149   revival, nature of

Psalm 80:8-19

     4458   grape

Psalm 80:17-19

     8151   revival, corporate

Library
One Antidote for Many Ills
This morning's sermon, then will be especially addressed to my own church, on the absolute necessity of true religion in our midst, and of revival from all apathy and indifference. We may ask of God multitudes of other things, but amongst them all, let this be our chief prayer: "Lord, revive us; Lord, revive us!" We have uttered it in song; let me stir up your pure minds, by way of remembrance, to utter it in your secret prayers, and make it the daily aspiration of your souls. I feel, beloved, that …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 5: 1859

Dishonest Tenants
'And He began to speak unto them by parables. A certain man planted a vineyard, and set an hedge about it, and digged a place for the winefat, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country. 2. And at the season he sent to the husbandmen a servant, that he might receive from the husbandmen of the fruit of the vineyard. 3. And they caught him, and beat him, and sent him away empty. 4. And again he sent unto them another servant; and at him they cast stones, and wounded …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Blessing of God.
NUMB. VI. 22-27. We have already seen the grace of GOD making provision that His people, who had lost the privilege of priestly service, might draw near to Him by Nazarite separation and consecration. And not as the offence was the free gift: those who had forfeited the privilege of priestly service were the males only, but women and even children might be Nazarites; whosoever desired was free to come, and thus draw near to GOD. We now come to the concluding verses of Numb. vi, and see in them one …
James Hudson Taylor—Separation and Service

Period iii. The Critical Period: A. D. 140 to A. D. 200
The interval between the close of the post-apostolic age and the end of the second century, or from about 140 to 200, may be called the Critical Period of Ancient Christianity. In this period there grew up conceptions of Christianity which were felt by the Church, as a whole, to be fundamentally opposed to its essential spirit and to constitute a serious menace to the Christian faith as it had been commonly received. These conceptions, which grew up both alongside of, and within the Church, have …
Joseph Cullen Ayer Jr., Ph.D.—A Source Book for Ancient Church History

The Wicked Husbandmen.
"Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country: and when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it. And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another. Again, he sent other servants more than the first: and they did unto …
William Arnot—The Parables of Our Lord

Discourse on the Good Shepherd.
(Jerusalem, December, a.d. 29.) ^D John X. 1-21. ^d 1 Verily, verily, I say to you [unto the parties whom he was addressing in the last section], He that entereth not by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. [In this section Jesus proceeds to contrast his own care for humanity with that manifested by the Pharisees, who had just cast out the beggar. Old Testament prophecies were full of declarations that false shepherds would arise to …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Homiletical.
Twenty-four homilies on miscellaneous subjects, published under St. Basil's name, are generally accepted as genuine. They are conveniently classified as (i) Dogmatic and Exegetic, (ii) Moral, and (iii) Panegyric. To Class (i) will be referred III. In Illud, Attende tibi ipsi. VI. In Illud, Destruam horrea, etc. IX. In Illud, Quod Deus non est auctor malorum. XII. In principium Proverbiorum. XV. De Fide. XVI. In Illud, In principio erat Verbum. XXIV. Contra Sabellianos et Arium et Anomoeos. …
Basil—Basil: Letters and Select Works

Rules to be Observed in Singing of Psalms.
1. Beware of singing divine psalms for an ordinary recreation, as do men of impure spirits, who sing holy psalms intermingled with profane ballads: They are God's word: take them not in thy mouth in vain. 2. Remember to sing David's psalms with David's spirit (Matt. xxii. 43.) 3. Practise St. Paul's rule--"I will sing with the spirit, but I will sing with the understanding also." (1 Cor. xiv. 15.) 4. As you sing uncover your heads (1 Cor. xi. 4), and behave yourselves in comely reverence as in the …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

The Shepherd of Our Souls.
"I am the good Shepherd: the good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep."--John x. 11. Our Lord here appropriates to Himself the title under which He had been foretold by the Prophets. "David My servant shall be king over them," says Almighty God by the mouth of Ezekiel: "and they all shall have one Shepherd." And in the book of Zechariah, "Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, and against the man that is My fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts; smite the Shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered." …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII

Farewell Discourse to Disciples.
(Jerusalem. Evening Before the Crucifixion.) ^D John XIV.-XVI. ^d 1 Let not your heart be troubled: believe in God, believe also in me. [That one should betray him and one should deny him, that all should be offended, and that the Lord should depart, raised anxieties which Jesus here seeks to quiet. That they should go out as homeless wanderers without the presence of their Lord and be subjected to persecution, was also in their thoughts. But Jesus sustains their spirits by appealing to them to …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

The Barren Fig-Tree;
OR, THE DOOM AND DOWNFALL OF THE FRUITLESS PROFESSOR: SHOWING, THAT THE DAY OF GRACE MAY BE PAST WITH HIM LONG BEFORE HIS LIFE IS ENDED; THE SIGNS ALSO BY WHICH SUCH MISERABLE MORTALS MAY BE KNOWN. BY JOHN BUNYAN 'Who being dead, yet speaketh.'--Hebrews 11:4 London: Printed for J. Robinson, at the Golden Lion, in St. Paul's Churchyard, 1688. This Title has a broad Black Border. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. This solemn, searching, awful treatise, was published by Bunyan in 1682; but does not appear …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Psalms
The piety of the Old Testament Church is reflected with more clearness and variety in the Psalter than in any other book of the Old Testament. It constitutes the response of the Church to the divine demands of prophecy, and, in a less degree, of law; or, rather, it expresses those emotions and aspirations of the universal heart which lie deeper than any formal demand. It is the speech of the soul face to face with God. Its words are as simple and unaffected as human words can be, for it is the genius …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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