Psalm Category: Lament

Central Thought: God is the one who saves us from our troubled state and restores us

When you look at the real state of the church in the Old Testament period–and today–you will easily understand why fully one-third of the Bible’s psalms are songs of lament. The Gadarene rush of the mainline denominations of our time to sanction same-sex “marriages” and approve practicing homosexual clergy marks the definitive overthrow of biblical morality in favor of the standards of what Paul calls the “debased mind” (Rom. 1:28). This can only be a cause of lamentation on the part of God’s people.

Psalm 80 is such a lament and we will grasp it best, when we see it as asking–and answering–three questions that appeal to the Lord to save the visible church from her sad and broken state.

Question one: “Lord, are you not the shepherd of your people?” (vv. 1-7). The psalmist knows that God is the pastor of his church–of those who know him truly, experientially and practically. The Lord was Israel’s shepherd in the past (vv. 1-2). God led Joseph (and Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh), and manifested himself “between the cherubim” (of the Ark of the Covenant). Past blessings offer confidence to cry to the Lord to save us now. Notice that this appeal appears three times (vv. 3, 7, 19) and has three parts: a plea for restoration–“Restore us”; the means of that restoration–“cause Your face to shine”; and the outcome of restoration–“come and save us.”

The second aspect of God’s shepherding of his flock is that he is still doing this in the present. This had recently taken the form of chastisement. God had withdrawn his blessings, chastised the backsliders and shamed the OT church before their enemies (vv. 4-6).

Are you wandering from the Lord? His pastoral attentions may already have touched your life with a wake-up call. Are you listening to him? He is calling you to repentance. So waste no time praying in the terms of Psalm 80:7!

Question two: “Lord, are we not Your vine?” (vv. 8-16). The illustration changes from sheep to a grape-vine. Like a vine, the church is planted to grow and bear fruit. This section helps us understand our most vital need in three ways:

1. It tells us what the church is–the recipient of God’s grace (vv. 8-11). She is “a vine out of Egypt” planted in God’s land, with deep roots and boughs that spread from the Mediterranean “Sea” to the “River” Euphrates. This is the glory of the church in every age, as expressed in the language of prophecy.

2. It tells us what the church has become–backslidden and under chastisement from the God of all grace (vv. 12-13). This is the same story that is told in the “Song of the Vine” (Isaiah 5:1-7)–“He expected it to bring forth good grapes, but it brought forth wild grapes … For the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the house of Israel … He looked for justice but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold, a cry for help.” God’s vineyard was something of a disappointment to him, as Jesus points out in Matthew 21:33ff.

3. It tells us what the church urgently needs–a mighty visitation of God’s grace (vv. 14-16). The psalmist pleads with the Lord to “return … look down … and visit” his vine as the one who owns it and loves it. O Lord, will you decide, evaluate and act, so as to come to us in saving grace and power (v. 14)! Why do we need his sympathetic presence? The answer is simply that we have been subjected to his frowns of rebuke (vv. 15-16). When God shows us that he disapproves of our behavior, the desire of a responsive Christian conscience is to cry, “LORD, lift up the light of Your countenance upon us.” (Psalm 4:6).

Question three: “Lord, will you not save us?” (vv. 17-19). The underlying assumption here is that we deserve to be condemned and lost forever! God is holy, just and true. We are unholy, unjust and false. “All our righteousnesses are like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). Not exactly encouraging, but certainly true! This being so, how is anyone to be saved? The answer is, by “the man of Your right hand … the son of man whom You made strong for Yourself,” (v. 17). The language here recalls Psalm 8:4, which speaks of the “son of man,” and like that psalm, the reference is surely Messianic.

A.A. Bonar observes, “Even if the terms were appropriate to Israel as God’s favoured people, still there would be here simply an allusion to that fact, while the real possessor of the name is Messiah, God’s true Israel. And if so, then verse 17 is Israel in the Latter Day, crying ‘Hosanna’ to Christ…” (Christ and His Church in the Book of Psalms, p. 241). Christ is the Savior! Only Christ! The crucified Christ - the atonement for sin!

How are we to live from here on? First, “we will not turn back,” and second, “we will call upon [the Lord’s] name” (v. 18). These are the only evidences of a real work of God’s grace in us and a genuine saving knowledge of Christ–the obedience of faith and worship in Spirit and in truth. The closing prayer in v. 19 (for the third time) sets out the bottom line and seals the deal. We are saved when God restores us and makes his face to shine upon us. God “is light, and in Him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). Jesus, the man of His right hand, is the Light of the world and the Great Shepherd of the Sheep and the true Vine (John 8:12; Heb. 13:20; John 15:1), and he who saves you and restores you again to himself, is also able “to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with great joy” (Jude 24).

–Gordon J. Keddie