Though the method of our warfare is different, we should see the connection between Israel inheriting the land under David, and the church inheriting the nations through the preaching of the gospel. As we proclaim this good news under our king, we plead the promises of God for the nations to be given to his Son.

Psalm 60 is perhaps not a psalm many of us have given much thought to. But, in many ways, is a psalm that those who desire to see the church of God revived would do well to familiarize themselves with. The occasion, the superscription tells us, was when David strove with Aram-Naharaim and Aram-Zobah, and when Joab struck down 12,000 of Edom in the Valley of Salt (the events described in 2 Samuel 8). Yet surprisingly, the psalm begins with a bitter lament over how God has rejected his people and broken their defenses.

What is going on? Does this psalm help us to “read between the lines,” as if the victories of 2 Samuel 8 included unrecorded setbacks and defeats. That is the position of many commentators. However, many older commentators (like Calvin, Henry, and Dickson) believed a more probable explanation was that David, now at the beginning of his conquest, was lamenting the condition of the nation under Saul before him. Thus, Psalm 60 reflects the prayer of David, in a period of decline, praying for brighter days.

Charles Spurgeon says, in his commentary on Psalm 60, “So far gone was Israel that only God’s interposition could preserve it from utter destruction… How often have we seen churches in this condition… and how suitable is the prayer before us, in which the extremity of the need is used as an argument for help….”[i] He compared the warfare in which David and the church of old were involved with the spiritual battle in which we are involved. And, commenting on verse 4 and the “banner of truth,” he called for the church, in these modern days of warfare, to unfurl its banners to the breeze with confident joy.[ii]

Nearly a century after Spurgeon wrote those words, his commentary on Psalm 60 became the inspiration for the name of the Reformed publishing ministry, The Banner of Truth. In reading his commentary, its founders were inspired, in their age of spiritual declension, to return to the truth of God’s Word and unfurl its banners with confident joy. They understood Psalm 60 as a psalm about revival – and in particular, a revival of the truth of God’s Word.[iii]

So, as we pray for God to revive his church in a similar day of spiritual decline, we do well to turn to Psalm 60 to guide our prayer. I believe it gives us five lessons on revival and the mission of the church.

First, Psalm 60 teaches us that revival begins with calling on the name of the Lord in humble repentance. We see this in verses 1 through 3, where David admits that God is angry with them, and they are in need of his restoring grace. There is implied throughout the unfaithfulness of God’s people who have therefore been unsuccessful in the war they wage. Perhaps we can learn from this, as Harry Reeder observed in his book on church revitalization, that “sometimes churches are stagnant or declining because there is sin in the camp… There is a need for corporate confession because the body as a whole has not faithfully followed God’s Word.”[iv] Often, there is a connection between God’s blessing on the church’s labors and the faithfulness of the church. So, the first lesson of Psalm 60 is that revival begins with calling upon the name of the Lord in humble repentance.

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