What kind of bird are you? The kind that flaps furiously but tires quickly, the kind that glides but always returns to earth, or the kind that truly soars? Today on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah reveals the Bible's formula for becoming one who soars without getting weary—an important advantage in our age of spiritual warfare. With the conclusion of his message, restored souls.
Here's David.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, we are about halfway through our discussion of the battle for your soul, and today we finish up our discussion of a restored soul. By the way, did you know that the word soul appears in the Bible 450 times, and yet, as I told our people and mentioned again recently while preaching in New York City, I have never heard a message on the soul. I have never preached a message on the soul. I don't know that I've ever read a full-length article on the soul. Isn't that the strangest thing?
When the soul, as Billy Graham said, will be as old as God. What a tragedy that we don't spend more time on that which is eternal, and maybe a little less time on that which is perishing day by day. I could give you all the statistics about the money we spend on our bodies, but I won't do that. I just want to remind you, you need to spend some time on your soul, and the Bible has all kinds of ways of helping us look at it. We're looking at it through the eyes of a shepherd today, and we'll finish that discussion in just a moment.
But first. Let me tell you, you can get a copy of this whole book on the battle for your soul. It's two hundred and forty pages, hardback, just released by Thomas Nelson. It's in all the bookstores, but you may want to get it this way. If you send a gift to Turning Point during the month of October, all you have to do is do that and say, "Please send me the book," and we'll do it.
We want you to be as generous as you can be because we totally do depend on your gifts for the continuation of this ministry. But regardless of the size of your gift, you ask for a copy of this book, and it will be sent to your home. We'll do it as quickly as we can, so you may even have it before this series is finished on the air. This book is filled with much more than I could talk about. By the way, there's 31 chapters in the book.
I only get a chance to preach 10 messages, so there's a lot of material here that you won't get on the radio, but you will get it in the book, and it will be helpful to you. I hope you'll take advantage of this October opportunity to get your copy of the Battle for Your Soul.
Now, here's part two of Restored Souls. All of us make foolish mistakes. I'm sure you can think of things you wish you could reverse. You can't change the past, but you can let the Lord restore your soul.
Somehow, we find that even when we are restored, we can be better than we were before. If you're cast down because of something you've done, You are one with the rest of us. Approach the good Shepherd with humble repentance. Ask Him to restore your soul. Say to the Lord, dear Shepherd, I ask you now to restore my soul.
Restore me from my own foolishness. Lead me in the paths of righteousness for Your name's sake.
So maybe you're here today and you've done something foolish. You don't have to raise your hand. You don't have to nudge your neighbor. But down in your heart, you know, that was really a dumb thing. God will restore you from that if you ask Him.
I just thought you should know that, because we kind of are all together and doing dumb things once in a while. He restores your soul from foolishness, and then we learn that He restores your soul from failure. The Lord knows how to restore our souls from failure. There was this young man in the New Testament. He's kind of like a lesser light among all of the characters of the Bible.
His name was John Mark. He won the distinction of being chosen by the apostle Paul to go with Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey. Part way through the trip, John Mark quit. He walked away. He went home.
He didn't want to do this anymore. And later, when Barnabas wanted to take him with them on another trip, Paul refused to let it happen. He said, "He's a quitter, and I'm not taking him." He didn't trust him, and John Mark gained the reputation of having disappointed the great apostle Paul. I wonder if John Mark ever quoted Psalm 23 about being restored, because years later he was restored. It was the Lord who took John Mark's failure and fashioned it into faith and faithfulness.
And listen to me; this will be a surprise to some of you. We know this man today as the writer of the second gospel, the Gospel of Mark. The man who failed was privileged to write the second gospel in the New Testament. Near the end of his ministry, Paul wrote, "Get Mark, bring him." For he's useful to me in the ministry. Was he restored?
Absolutely, was. Many of you know that Satan has a twofold strategy for the Christian life. Let me remind you of what that is. First, he tries to convince us that we're not capable of falling into sin. Whenever you begin to think I could never do that, you are standing dangerously close to a fall.
But Satan has a second strategy, even more sinister than the first, and that is: after we sin, he whispers in our ears that we can never be restored and be useful to God again. He tells us our failure is too great, our sin is too serious, and that God could never forgive us after what we have done. But I'm here to tell you today that that is a lie. That is not the truth. Has he ever whispered that to you?
Has he ever tried to convince you that what you have done is too terrible to be forgiven?
Well, I want to tell you plainly today: Almighty God restores souls. You cannot sin away the grace of God. The only person who can never be restored is the person who refuses restoration from God. You can refuse to be restored and not be restored, but that's the only way I know that that'll ever happen. I remember reading the story some years ago about Ruth Graham, and her first marriage that ended after 21 years.
She was Billy Graham's daughter, and she believed she had embarrassed her family, and embarrassed God, and that God would certainly be through with her. Needing a fresh start, she moved to Florida and began attending a new church, and she met a widower there, and their relationship progressed quickly. Despite concerns of her children, and repeated warnings from her parents to slow down, Ruth pressed ahead. And just six months after meeting him, they were married. But five weeks later, she fled the marriage in fear, and drove to her parents' home in North Carolina.
As she wound up the mountain road, she braced herself for criticism and disappointment. She dreaded what was to come. But when she made the final turn at the top of the mountain, she saw her father, Dr. Graham, standing at the entrance to their driveway. And once out of the car, he pulled his daughter into his arms and whispered, "Welcome home, honey." She later said, "My father's embrace at that moment was one of the most profound gestures of acceptance I have ever experienced.
To be utterly broken and still accepted." To feel ugly and yet loved, to feel like an outcast and still be welcome—I marvelled at the contrast between my heart, which was full of shame and regret, and my father's heart, which was full of love. If you feel like a failure today, or if you are frustrated because things fell apart under your watch, just come and say, "Lord, you are my shepherd. I ask you to restore my soul." Restore me from this failure. I claim your promise that goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. You are my shepherd; I'm a sheep.
He restores us from foolishness and from failure, sometimes from friction. The Lord can restore our souls from the friction of difficult relationships. There's nothing more painful than rejection.
Some people are rejected by their parents. I can't imagine the pain of that.
Some people are deeply wounded when a girlfriend or a boyfriend breaks up with them.
Sometimes we feel betrayed by coworkers. The bruises and scars and injuries that are inflicted on our souls are just like physical wounds in our body, and maybe even worse. David understood that he wrote, "Even my own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread and lifted up his heel against me." David said, "This person who betrayed me was my personal friend. We used to eat together." The Bible says, "Jesus was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." My friend Robert Morgan wrote a book called The Lord Is My Shepherd, and in this book he talked about one day checking on his small flock of backyard sheep, and he discovered that the horse had taken a serious bite out of Ethel's ear. Ethel was an old ewe.
After pondering whether to call a vet, Psalm twenty-three, five came to his mind. Grabbing a bottle of olive oil from the pantry, Rob washed Ethel's ear and rubbed the oil into the wound. It seemed to soothe her. And after several treatments, the wound healed. Later, a sheep exhibitor at the state fair told him, "That's the little trick we use at livestock shows.
If we're showing a sheep and she gets a nick or a cut, we rub olive oil on it, and it does the trick." The good shepherd we are told is alert to the various hurts and cuts and scrapes that we have, and he anoints us with oil. Did you know that oil is a symbol of the Holy Spirit in the Bible? The Lord Jesus tends our wounds with the oil of the Holy Spirit, and it's the most amazing medication you've ever known.
So let me just say to you today: If some old nag has taken a bite out of your ear, if you've been deeply wounded by another person, just say to the Lord, dear Shepherd, please restore my love and my joy. Please give me a special anointing of the healing oil of your Holy Spirit. You know, so often when we get hurt, our first tendency is to hurt back, and all that does is hurt us more. And there's a way to deal with hurt. The Shepherd's way is a good way.
So, the Bible says, "He restores my soul from foolishness, failure, friction." Here's one from fear. Maybe you're a fearful person. The Lord can restore your soul from fear. Fear is no respecter of person or ages. It strikes the weak and the powerful.
It haunts the young and the old, the rich and the poor. Even those who seem to have it all often battle anxious thoughts. I've talked to many. High-level people who suffer with fear. You know, it's one thing to have a lot, but when you have it, then you fear losing it.
So, you know, there's all kinds of fears that come to take their toll on people. Author and educator Neil Anderson said, "Fear is a thief. It erodes our faith. It plunders our hope. It steals our freedom, and it takes away our joy." But in Christ.
That goes away. The Lord restores fearful souls. Isaiah forty-one is one of my favorite verses. It says, "Fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." And David wrote in Psalm twenty-three, verse four: "I fear no evil, for you are with me." In his memoir *A Turtle on a Fencepost*, industrialist Alan Emery recalled spending a night with a shepherd on the Texas prairie. I remember this story from some years ago and how it impressed me. How it has stayed with me.
How I can never forget the impact of this story. The shepherd was tending a flock of about two thousand sheep with the help of three sheepdogs. As evening settled in, the sheep lay down around a large bonfire. Then the stillness was broken by the long howl of coyotes. The dogs growled.
The sheep lumbered to their feet, and the shepherd threw more logs on the fire. In the glow, Alan looked out, and he saw thousands of little lights. He realized those lights were the reflections of the fire in the eyes of the sheep. The sheep had instinctively looked toward the shepherd. They didn't look toward the sound of the dogs or the coyotes.
They looked toward the shepherd in the midst of the danger. The sheep were not looking into the darkness, but were keeping their eyes in the direction of their safety, looking toward the shepherd. What an amazing story that is, and how that should impact us. What do you do when trouble comes? Do you look toward the trouble?
Isn't that what we normally do? We analyze it. Here's the new thing we do: we look it up on the internet. We try to find out everything we can about it. You got a little tweak in your back?
Well, if you can find it on the internet, you will, and there'll be 900 things that it could be, and you'll be thinking about that for the next week.
So, what is the best thing we can do? I'm not saying we should be ignorant about what's going on in us. But when trouble comes, you can make your decision. Keep your eye on the trouble, or keep your eye on the shepherd. I recommend the latter.
Keep your eye on the shepherd. Laura Bassler shared how God restored her soul through seasons of loss and fear. Early in her marriage, she and her husband chose Psalm twenty-three, six as their life verse. Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. But only four years later, they lost their newborn son to severe birth complications.
Soon after, she lost her grandmother. Then her father-in-law suddenly passed away from a heart attack. Fear and grief could have consumed her. But instead, she used Psalm 23 to steady her heart. Laura said, "I didn't need to be afraid of more losses.
I could trust that God would bring goodness and mercy into my life, even in the midst of tragedies." Nearly 11 years after the loss, she testified that God's goodness and mercy had faithfully sustained their family. The Lord blessed them with five healthy children, surrounded them with loving support, and gave them the hope of one day being united. With the loved ones they had lost, sometimes we think when bad things happen to us or we go through a tough spell, this is the way it's going to be from now on. But the Bible doesn't let us do that. What does the Bible say in Psalm 23?
Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. I was talking with someone about that, and realized the only way you can ever say that is to look over your shoulder at your life. And if you're like me, even with a few bumps and bruises along the way, you look back and you realize my life has been filled with mercy and goodness, and so shall your future be.
So he restores us from foolishness and failure and friction and fear. One more, he restores us from faint-heartedness. He knows how to restore your soul from fatigue and exhaustion that comes from difficult moments. There are seasons when your soul just gets weary. You try to keep going, but discouragement and disappointment begin to drain your strength.
When those times come, the prophet Isaiah tells us where we can find renewed strength. Those who wait on the Lord, he said, shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.
I remember years ago reading an article about how birds fly, and the article was written by a preacher to explain how Christians function. And I want to just say to you, every one of you is like a bird. You can decide what bird you are. First, some birds fly by flapping, constantly beating their wings to stay in the air. Hummingbirds can flap seventy times per second, but flapping is exhausting, and it creates a lot of noise and motion.
Doesn't carry the bird very far. Honestly, many of us live that way spiritually. Maybe you're a flapper. Constantly striving, worrying, worrying yourself, trying to make life work in your own strength, and then there are birds that glide. They gain momentum, they go up in the sky, and then they coast downward.
Gliding is more graceful than flapping, but eventually, gravity takes over, and if nothing changes, the bird has to come back down to earth, and finally. There is soaring, and that is the eagle. That's why the eagle is so special. He's able to catch powerful thermal winds that lift them higher without frantic effort. They soar on currents they cannot see, and that is Isaiah's picture.
When our souls become faint-hearted, God restores our strength. He lifts us up and teaches us to soar in the strength of His Spirit. Alex McDougal discovered that truth personally as an 18-year-old. He responded to the gospel at a crusade in Anaheim, California, trusted Christ as his Savior, and that night he heard the hymn "Surely Goodness and Mercy," based on Psalm 23, and he never forgot it. Decades later, at age 71, McDougal was diagnosed with esophageal cancer.
During exhausting treatments and painful recovery, he found comfort in Psalm 23, set to music by composer Howard Goodall. One especially difficult night, he said he felt as though he were walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Overwhelmed, he played the song once more. The Lord is my shepherd; he restores my soul. As he listened.
Tears streamed down his face. He later said, "The overwhelming presence of God filled the room, bringing peace and comfort and assurance." So, I ask you today: Are you in a bad place right now? Maybe listening across the internet. Do you find yourself in a hard place? You are in a predicament.
You don't know what to do. Is your soul cast down, discouraged, traumatized? Your friends may come alongside you. Your counselors may help you. Your pastor may encourage you, or you may find no one to lift you up, but only the good shepherd.
Pastor Gene Wilder recalled attending a funeral where the minister asked everyone to recite the 23rd Psalm for memory. As the familiar words filled the air, Wilder noticed something. Most of those over 50 knew Psalm 23, and most of those under 40. Didn't open their mouths. The younger members of that congregation did not know the twenty-third psalm by heart.
They could not recite the familiar words that that little three-year-old girl memorized for her Sunday school class. That should challenge all of us because Psalm 23 isn't just a passage for funerals. It's a passage for everyday life. If you do not know it well, you should begin reading it today and memorize it. Six verses.
You can do it in a day easily. Doctor Robert McQuown wrote a little booklet on the twenty-third Psalm. In it, he made an observation that makes all the difference in the world.
So listen carefully. If you don't get anything else I've said, listen to this. We tend to say. The Lord is my shepherd, but I can't pay my bills. The Lord is my shepherd, but I don't feel well.
The Lord is my shepherd, but I'm worried about this problem. McQuown said the problem with that is you're putting the little contrast but in the wrong place. When we put the little word but there, our problems feel larger than our shepherd. Turn it around. Listen.
Instead, we should reverse the order and say, "I am presently having trouble paying my bills, but the Lord is my shepherd. I may not feel well, but the Lord is my shepherd. His goodness follows me all the days of my life. It is all a matter of perspective. When you see the Lord and His shepherding ministry in the proper perspective." Life becomes so much better.
The testimony of victory puts this into the right place.
So let me just tell you something I know about sheep.
Someone has said that God uses sheep as an illustration of His church, of His people, because sheep are ornery. They're a little bit stupid sometimes. A sheep will drown if you don't keep him away from the water, and yet. Sheep are totally dependent. The difference for most of us is we don't know that, we don't accept that, we don't realize that the shepherd is there for us.
So we wander through, stumbling around, falling all over ourselves, doing foolish thing after foolish thing, when the shepherd is there to restore us. I want to ask you to do something. I know this is a little rare. Would you memorize Psalm twenty-three? You can do it.
And then, just for a while before you go to sleep at night, just repeat it. You will discover that whatever is happening in your life, that you don't understand, that's kind of driving you crazy, it'll come into perspective when you realize Almighty God has provided a shepherd for you. The Lord Jesus Christ is your shepherd. He is the good shepherd. The good shepherd loves his sheep, and the sheep know the shepherd's voice.
That's what the Bible says. Get in love with the shepherd, and find your way through the difficulties that life presents to all of us. It's just one of the great things that comes with knowing God. One of the great things that comes with knowing this book. Amen.
Amen. Hey, thank you for being with us this week as we've studied the Bible together, and I hope you're looking forward to the weekend to be in church because that's where you should be. I tell everybody on Friday how important it is for you to go to church. We are not a church. We are a radio ministry, and we hope to be an encouragement to you as you go to church from Sunday to Sunday.
And let me remind you that if you live in the area of San Diego, you can come to a church where I will be. It's the Shadow Mountain Community Church. We're always, always welcoming people who come to visit us. If you live across the country and you make a trip to San Diego, please include in your trip a visit to Shadow Mountain Church in El Cajon, California. California, we will treat you right.
We will welcome you, and you will be blessed by the music and the worship, and hopefully, by the teaching of the Word of God. And we'll be here on Monday to continue our discussion of the battle for your soul. Thanks for listening. Have a great weekend. Our message today originated from Shadow Mountain Community Church and Senior Pastor Dr.
David Jeremiah. Turning Point is also on radio and TV this weekend. To learn where you can find it, visit our website davidjeremiah dot org slash radio. That's davidjeremiah dot o r g slash radio, or call eight hundred nine four seven nineteen ninety three. Ask for your copy of David's helpful new book, "The Battle for Your Soul." It's yours for a gift of any amount.
You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the New International and New King James versions. Complete with notes and articles from Doctor Jeremiah's decades of study. If you have an encouraging word for us, we invite you to share it by writing to Turning Point, P.O. Box 3838, San Diego, California 92163. This is David Michael Jeremiah.
Join us Monday as we continue the battle for your soul on Turning Point with Doctor David Jeremiah.
