A Word in Season: Revive Us Again (Psalm 85:6)

In Psalm 85 and verse 6, the sons of Korah cry out, Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you? There's both appreciation here for mercies already bestowed, and there is application for mercies still to be received.

There's petition, pleading, prayer to God. They're not denying the fact that God has been favourable to them. They're not ignoring the history of God's gracious dealings with them. But they're praying that God, the God of their salvation, would restore them and cause his anger toward them to cease.

Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you? Now you'll notice that they speak as God's people. That's really what reviving involves. You cannot revive that which has never had life.

You can make alive those who are dead, but reviving is the stirring up of life that has ebbed away. It's the smoking wick that is fanned again into a flame. It's the drowning man who has the water pumped out of his lungs and is able now to breathe again.

It's the fainting one who is now restored to vigour and strength. So these are men and women who have enjoyed this life from God, but now they want that life to be stirred up and to be restored in a measure that they have not known for some time.

You'll notice too that this would not be the first time that this has happened. Revive us again. They know that it is God's good pleasure to do these things, that his faithfulness to his promises means that he will not leave his people in the doldrums, that God has blessed them in the past, that there have been times when they have slidden away, when they've been in deep distress, when they've been in gloom and darkness, and God has made his face to shine upon them.

And out of that experience, God's people cry to him and they ask, will you not revive us again? And then you'll notice the desire that they have, the expectation that they have in being so stirred and revived, in order that your people may rejoice in you.

You see, their first concern is not just that they might have an easier life, it's not so that things won't go so badly with them, it's not so that they can be relieved of some of their distresses. Their first concern is that they might find their joy in God restored, that they would see him in his glory, that they would enter into the riches of his covenant mercies, that they would know the favour of God upon them, and have enlarged and renewed appetite and ability to make known all his glorious praises.

Now, are we possessed of such an appetite for God? Are we satisfied with where we are individually as Christians and in the churches to which we belong? Do we think that we're living out the fullness of the life that we have received, or have sin and carelessness and coldness robbed us of some of that sense of God and that eagerness for holiness?

If so, here is a prayer for our souls. Revive us again, O God, that your people may rejoice in you. We're asking that the Lord would give us that reviving grace, that stirring up of life, that things that have become distant to us would be clearer and nearer, that things that we've stopped relishing would become more appetizing to us, that perhaps duties in which we've no longer engaged will return to them with zeal and with vigour, that above all that we would see the majesty of God and that it would satisfy our souls, and that the joy of our hearts would be lifted up again, and that we would praise him because we love him, we know him, we adore him, we trust him, and we serve him.

So, wherever we may be, here is something that we could ask the God of our salvation, coming as his people, coming as those who know how he's dealt with us in time past, both historically and personally, and with that eager anticipation that we should enter into the joy of God even now.

Will you, O Lord, not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?