TOTAL RESTORATION
Ps 23:3 He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s
sake.
In the scriptures we see God restoring many things, the joy of salvation (Ps 51); the rain
(1 Ki 18); lost years (Joel 2:25); relationship with the Father (Lk 16); and lost wages (2 Ki
8) among others. I will touch on all these briefly today.
MEANING OF RESTORATION
Restoration is to bring back to the original condition,
It means to take something from the garbage heap and make something very special out
of it.
Years can be restored, Ruth 4 vs 13-17
Joel 2:25 And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the
caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.
Ruth’s years were restored.
Ru 4:13 So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife, and he went in to her. And the LORD
enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son.
Ru 4:14 Then the women said to Naomi, "Blessed is the LORD who has not left you without a
redeemer today, and may his name become famous in Israel.
Ru 4:15 "May he also be to you a restorer of life and a sustainer of your old age; for your
daughter-in-law, who loves you and is better to you than seven sons, has given birth to him."
Ru 4:16 Then Naomi took the child and laid him in her lap, and became his nurse.
Ru 4:17 And the neighbor women gave him a name, saying, "A son has been born to Naomi!"
So they named him Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David.
The only way you can truly appreciate this passage is if you realize all that Ruth and Naoimi
have been through. Naomi is married and has an affluent life in Israel. Times get tough, and
famine causes her, her husband and two sons to leave Israel and sojourn in Moab for some
years. (10) During that time her sons marry Moabite women. Her husband gets sick and dies,
and then her sons get sick and die. She hears things aren’t so bad in Israel and begins returning
to the land of her birth. One of her daughter-in-laws abandons her, but the other (Ruth) is a true
daughter and wonderful woman. When the two return to Israel the whole city is moved and is
shocked to see the financial and horrible personal state into which Naomi has fallen. She tells
the people of the city, "Don’t call me Naomi (pleasant one), anymore, call me Mara (bitterness),
for the Lord hath dealt bitterly with me." Who could blame her for feeling that way with all she
had been through. There are a lot of people who can relate to the way she felt. There is a
wonderful change in her circumstances, her daughter-in-law Ruth, is loved and married by a
wealthy man named Boaz, they have a child, named Obed who is the grandfather of King David.
The women of the city pronounce the blessing we just read in the book of Ruth, and in part they
said, "may he also be to you a restorer of life..."
Years are given back by God cramming so much happiness in them that we forget the sorrow
we once had, that is how years are restored to us!
When God takes us off the trash heap of life, He can cram so much happiness into our lives that
it becomes as if the bad years have been restored to us.
Lost possessions and wages can be restore:
In 2 Kings chapter 8, a woman who had befriended Elisha the prophet, ultimately had to leave
Israel because Elisha told her God had called for a seven year famine on the land. After seven
years she returned and others had taken over her land, and she appeals to the king to intervene.
It just so happened that Elisha’s former personal servant had been talking with the King of Israel
and recounting all the miracles Elisha had performed, one which included the woman we are
talking about when Elisha was used of God to raise her son from the dead. While telling the
story, is exactly when she showed up in the kings court. The king is amazed to meet her, and
asked her if the story is true, she says yes. The king then orders her land to be returned, and
any profit the people who had taken the land had made in the last 7 years be returned to her.
Thus the years were restored to her. Her possessions were restored, and lost wages were
returned!
Here is a promise of God, that if we sacrifice for Him, all will be restored us, and we will be paid
back with compounded interest:
Lu 18:29 "Yes," said Jesus, "and you won’t regret it. No one who has sacrificed home, spouse,
brothers and sisters, parents, children—whatever—
Lu 18:30 will lose out. It will all come back multiplied many times over in your lifetime. And then
the bonus of eternal life!" (MSG)
God can restoring our soul, and leads me in paths of righteousness.
After God restores our soul spiritually, He goes further to restore our proper attitudes and
convictions.
Again in Psalm 51 David talks about restoring and renewing a, "right spirit," within me. What I
take this to mean is that not only are we restored to a right relationship with God, but our attitude
towards sin, is restored to it’s proper place.
Samson grew comfortable being around Delilah, the prostitute, while Joseph ran from Potiphar’s
wife. One had the right attitude towards sin and temptation, the other had no problem with being
very close to it.
When we are restored to the paths of righteousness our careless attitude towards sin is replace
by a sense of attempting to live a holy life and avoid all things that defile. We stop watching
certain TV shows, we become very conscious of where we are on the Internet. We try to bring
all our thoughts an actions under the control of the Holy Spirit.
We now have a proper attitudes about sin, prayer, fellowship and convictions.
Let’s talk about the restoration of the soul.
God is not only in the business of restoring our soul to paths of righteousness, but He is also
very involved in simply restoring our soul. Healing what we call a broken heart. Healing the
wounds of life that touch us in our inner core.
Lu 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord [is] upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel
to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives,
and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, (KJV)
Sickness tends to make us feel God doesn’t like us. (That also is a type of broken heart) (While
the opposite is often very true, cf. "He whom YOU LOVE is sick," (John 11) (Note also the
disciples question in John 9 who sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind. Jesus
knocks out of the park the idea that sin was the cause for blindness, He says it was for the glory
of God. Yet many people who get cancer wonder how God could love them and let that happen.
Those feeling hurt us in deep places of our heart.)
And consider this one which is similar
Jos 5:9 And the LORD said unto Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from
off you. Wherefore the name of the place is called Gilgal unto this day. {Gilgal: that is Rolling}
This text speaks of a feeling that perhaps was in a lot of Jews in Joshua’s day, "if God loves us
why were we slaves, why did He allow our children to be murdered by the Egyptians." When
such questions are asked they are a flashing arrow pointing to a wounded heart/soul. How
wonderful it was to hear God say that He was rolling that off of them even as we would swat a
mosquito away. Only God, can in an instant, remove long held and deeply seated feelings of
shame and reproach. For the record I think in this passage He did it two ways: one was instantly,
this day have I rolled off of you... This day, not this week, or in the next couple of years, but this
day, that is an instantaneous miracle. The other was progressively.I think this story parrallels the
story of Naomi that the Jews would enter a season or properity, a land of mik and honey if you
will, that will be a continuing sense of the favor of God. Even as Naomi and Jewish nation had
years of troubles that made them doubt Gods love, He would now give them years of blessing
that would solidify their understanding of God’s true favor and good will towards them.
He restores the soul whatever kind of hurts it may have faced.
Listen to the last part of Luke 4:18 to set at liberty them that are bruised, and the NIV says to
release the oppressed.
Both of those texts remind me of the woman in Luke 13, she was not healed from her bent over
back, she was loosed from it. Woman thou art loosed. With a word Jesus has an anointing to
loose the oppressed and to heal the broken hearted. Counseling has its place, but no counselor
can say with the same authority Jesus has, that He has an anointing to heal the broken hearted.
Some hurts in life cannot be talked out of us, they have a way of binding to us like skin. Jesus
releases the oppressed, He can do, and does do, far more than any counselor ever thought of
doing. Come all ye that are burdened and heavy laden, take my yoke upon you and learn of me
and you WILL FIND rest for your soul." Only Jesus can give that kind of guarantee.
Close: Prayer for those who can relate to having a broken heart.