Good evening. Let's open tonight's
service with hymn number 24 from your Spiral Gospel Hymns hymnbook. Let's all stand together. Number
24. Jehovah Sidkei Lu, the Lord our
righteousness. We love to call you by that name,
our Savior Christ Jesus. Jehovah Sidkei Lu, ? The God-man
lived for us ? ? Bringing eternal righteousness ? ? Which God imbued
to us ? ? Jehovah-Sid-Canoe, Jehovah-Sid-Canoe ? our substitute
who died. Your blood has put away our sin,
and we are justified. Jehovah Sidkei Nu, your love
has won our praise. Trusting your blood and righteousness,
we're saved by your free grace. Jehovah Sidkenu, we stand in
you alone. Our only fitness before God is
in our Lord, His Son. Jehovah Sidkenu, The Lord, our righteousness Christ
Jesus, you alone we call The Lord, our righteousness Please
be seated. Tom, if you'll plan to lead us
in that hymn next Wednesday night, I plan to preach Jehovah Sidkenu
next Wednesday. Jeremiah chapter 23, in his days,
the days of the Lord Jesus Christ, Judah shall be saved and Israel
shall dwell safely for this is his name whereby he shall be
called Jehovah Sidkenu, the Lord of righteousness. And then, you
know, 10 chapters later in Jeremiah 33, that same verse is quoted,
but it says, and she shall be called the Lord our righteousness. By virtue of our union with Christ,
we have imputed to us, charged our account, credited to us before
God, the righteousness of Christ. And he is all our righteousness.
God has made him to be our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification,
and our redemption. We would have no righteousness
without him. Let's open our Bibles together
to Psalm 100. Psalm 100. Verse one. Make a joyful noise unto the
Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness.
Come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord,
he is God. It is he that hath made us and
not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep
of his pasture. Now tonight, we're going to be
looking at Jehovah-Raha. the Lord our shepherd from Psalm
23. And I wanted to read this. Let me read verse three again.
Know ye that the Lord, Jehovah, he is God. It is he that hath
made us and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep
of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving
and into his course with praise and be thankful unto him and
bless his name. Oh, there's no other name given
under heaven whereby we must be saved. For the Lord is good. His mercy is everlasting. His
truth endure to all generations. Let's pray together. merciful Heavenly Father, what
hope and comfort and peace you give us when we are enabled by
your grace to look to Christ for all our righteousness, all
our acceptance, all our wisdom, our sanctification, and our redemption. Lord, you've made him to be so.
We pray that your Holy Spirit would We give us faith to believe
all that you've told us in your word. We pray that you would
open the mystery of the gospel to our hearts and that you would
cause us, Lord, to see and to understand and to believe on
Christ. We thank you that we have a good
shepherd that has provided for the sheep of his pasture all
that you require of them. in this life and in the life
to come. We ask, Lord, that you would enable us to lie down this
hour in green pastures and to feed on the bread of life. For it's in Christ's name we
pray, amen. Let's stand together again. We'll
sing hymn number 212 from the hardback teminal. Number 212,
Nothing But The Blood. ["Nothing But The Blood"] What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. O precious is the flow that makes
me white as snow. No other fount I know, nothing
but the blood of Jesus. For my pardon, this I see, nothing
but the blood of Jesus. For my cleansing, this my plea,
nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that
makes me white as snow. No other fount I know, nothing
but the blood of Jesus. Nothing can for sin atone, nothing
but the blood of Jesus. Naught of good that I have done,
nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that
makes me white as snow. No other fount I know, nothing
but the blood of Jesus. This is all my hope and peace,
nothing but the blood of Jesus. This is all my righteousness,
nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow, That
makes me white as snow. No other fount I know. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Please be seated. Some of the hymns that we sing,
you have to look hard to find the gospel in that, not that
one, not that one. I love that hymn. Nothing, nothing
but the blood of Christ. When I see the blood, I will
pass by you. We know that in the volume of
this book, it is spoken of Christ. and that the Lord has taken to
himself names to express to us who he is. And that when he's
pleased to bless his word and to give us faith, that we find
more and more of who the Lord Jesus Christ is and what it is
he's accomplished on behalf of his people by the names that
he's given. of himself to us in his word. Peter put it like this. He is
preaching on the day of Pentecost. He said, none other name, none
other name has been given under heaven among men whereby we must
be saved, but one name. And Paul put it like this in
Philippians, he says, God has given him a name that is above
every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow
and every tongue confess that he is Lord to the glory of God
the Father. But when the Lord is pleased
to reveal his glory to the hearts of his people by his name, they
bow the knee. They bow in worship and they
confess that he gets all the glory for their salvation. 1 John 2, verse 12, I write unto
you little children because your sins are forgiven for my namesake,
for my namesake. The Lord said, I'm not forgiving
your sins because of anything in you. I'm not rewarding you
for the sincerity of your repentance or the sincerity of your faith
or for the evidence of your efforts. I'm blessing you with grace for
my namesake. The Lord Jesus Christ put his
name on the contract, if you will. That's what a covenant
is. A covenant is an agreement. It's
a promise. And just like when you agree
to purchase a house and you put your name down on that contract
and a hundred times you write your name, everything's covered. You're obligated to pay the debt. That's what the Lord said. I'm
going to do this for my name's sake. I have put my name on the
dotted line. And it's my character and my
reputation that is at stake to fulfill all that I promised my
father I would do in saving my people. Tell them they are forgiven
for my namesake. His name should be called Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sins. Oh, a good name
is better than riches in gold. Proverbs tells us how important
it is that we maintain the integrity of our name. By way of example,
we have had an automobile mechanic in our neighborhood that I've
been using for 30 years. And I would just take my car
to him and say, Bill, just fix it. Unless it costs more than
what the car is worth, just fix it. And I trusted him explicitly. He was very honest. And recently
he retired and sold his company with his name on it to some other
men. And first time I went, a few
months ago, everything went fine. The last time I went, they lied
to me. And I had to find another mechanic,
and I said, you know, I just can't bring myself to trust them. They've ruined the name of that
business for me, and I can never go back to them because they
were dishonest to me. That's just one little example.
You've had a similar experience in how much we value the character
of our own names. That's a human example of what
I'm trying to say about the Lord's integrity. And he said, I've
forgiven you for my name's sake. That's great comfort that the
Lord cannot lie and that he's going to be faithful to maintain
the integrity of his name. Hebrews chapter 1 verse 4, the
Lord tells us, he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name. And he's comparing him to the
angels of heaven. He said, he hath by inheritance,
the father has rewarded him with the inheritance of an excellent
name, above every name. far above all principalities
and powers and might and dominion and every name that is named,
not only in this world, but in the world to come, Ephesians
1 21. What a name. We rest the hope
of our salvation in the name of our God, knowing that he is
faithful to fulfill all that his name means. And that's why
he's given us so many of his names, because there's so much
to his character and so much to his nature, so much to his
work, that one name would not be sufficient to express to us
who he is. Psalm 119 verse 32 says, look
upon me. David's praying. He said, Lord,
look upon me. and be merciful unto me as thou
in judgment do unto all those that love thy name." We love
his name. We love to hear his name. You
have names in your life that when you hear them, you just
light up. They express to you the person
that you love. And so it is with His name. And we're going to be looking
at the name that the Lord has taken to himself here in Psalm
23, Raha in the Hebrew, R-A-A-H, Jehovah Raha, the Lord, my shepherd. And before we look at this Psalm,
I want to ask a question. Is God the Father less loving
or less faithful toward any of his children than he is toward
his firstborn. Because when we read of Jehovah,
we're talking about God, the Father, God, the Son, and God,
the Holy Spirit. And we saw in our study through the Psalms
that the Psalms are to be understood first and foremost as the words
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so when we read Psalm 23,
as often as we've heard it and we've read it and we've thought
of it relating to Christ being our shepherd, are we not to see
that the Lord Jesus Christ is expressing his faith in his father
as his great shepherd? Is the Lord Jesus Christ not
that lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world?
Is he not that Passover lamb that shed his precious blood
that God said, when I see his blood, I'll pass by? Is he not
the lamb without spot and without blemish? Is he not the one that
John saw in Revelation, the lamb? So yes, we are sheep. We are
dumb, dirty, dependent sheep. That's what sheep are by nature.
But the Lord Jesus Christ is that lamb of God who depended
completely on his father for everything. And we look to his
faithfulness to his father as the hope of our salvation. And
that's what he prayed in John chapter 17. Turn with me there. The question is, is God the Father
less loving or less faithful toward any of his children than
he was toward his firstborn? And the answer to that question
is no, he's not. He is as loving and faithful
toward all of his children as he was toward his firstborn begotten
of the Father. There's our hope because when
the Lord Jesus Christ, when we see Christ in Psalm 23 and we
know that God fulfilled these promises to him, is he going
to be any less faithful to fulfill those promises to us? Look what
our Lord said in John chapter 17, beginning at verse 23, I
in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in one. Daniel Murray texted me last
night and he was reading some passages in the Old Testament.
He said, pastor, what's the significance of the number two in the Bible?
And I said, well, two represents a union. The two shall be made
one flesh. And so two is union. And that's
what he's talking about here. He says, I in them and thou in
me that they may be made perfect in one and that the world may
know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast
loved me. Do you understand that? Can you
get your Your heart around that? Are your mind around that? Are
your arms around that? No. Do you believe that? There
it is right there. There it is. See, faith is just
believing God in it. To fully understand or comprehend
or enter into the real feelings of this. to experience our love,
to think, oh yeah, I can see how God would love me. Has he
loved his only son? No, you can't. But you can believe
it. You can believe it because God
said so. Look at verse 24. Father, I will
that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am,
that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me, for
thou lovest me before the foundation of the world. and all that you
chose in the covenant of grace and hid in Christ before time
ever began, Father, you loved them. You loved them just like
you love me. Here's our hope. Oh, righteous Father, the world
hath not known thee, but I have known thee, and these have known
that thou hast sent me. We believe that Jesus Christ
is the Son of God. that he is sent of his father
for the salvation of his people. And I have declared unto them
thy name. I have revealed to them who you
are by expressing to them your name. That's what Jehovah is. We have in the very gospel of
John seven times where the Lord Jesus Christ takes to himself,
I am, that's Jehovah, the self-existent, omnipotent, sovereign, immutable
creator and sustainer of all of life, physical and spiritual. The one who revealed himself
to Moses at the burning bush, I am. And the Lord Jesus Christ
said, I am the good shepherd. I am the bread of life. I am
the water of life. I am the resurrection and the
life. And those Jews knew that he was taking to himself the
name of God. For he said to them, when they wanted to stone him
one time, do you stone me for the good works that I do? And
they said, no, no, not for the good works that you do, but because
you being a man, make yourself out to be God. We're stoning
you for blasphemy. I have declared unto them thy
name and will declare it, that the love wherewith thou hast
loved me may be in them and I in them." Here's our hope, brethren. We
read Psalm 23 and we think about the Lord Jesus Christ being our
shepherd. And I want you to think with
me that God is as faithful and loving toward all of his children
as he was toward his firstborn. And these words are the words
first and foremost of the Lord Jesus Christ crying out to his
father in his incarnation and in his death on Calvary's cross
to be his shepherd. And that the father was faithful
in fulfilling that prayer for him, he's going to be faithful
in fulfilling that prayer for all that are found in him. You know, we've been looking
at the names of God in the last several weeks, and in this one
Psalm, matter of fact, in the first five verses of this Psalm,
we have all the seven names of Jehovah that we've been looking
at, at least implied. Look with me quickly. The Lord
is my shepherd. That's what we're thinking about
tonight. Jehovah-Raha, the shepherd of his sheep. For I shall not
want. We looked at Jehovah-Jireh, the
Lord shall provide. You remember when Abraham took
Isaac up on the mountain and he said, father, here's the fire
and here's the wood, but where's the lamb for the burnt offering?
And God will provide himself. And he called the place Jehovah-Jireh. And here we have in this Psalm,
the Lord is my shepherd, Jehovah-Raha, I shall not be in want of anything
in this life nor in the life to come. For he hath provided
all that's required. All that's required. He maketh
me to lie down in green pastures. Jehovah shalom. The Lord is my
peace. And I, Lord Jesus Christ, lie
down in that grave. peace that he had done everything
required of his father and we lie down in Christ in peace and
we rest in his accomplished work of redemption and in his glorious
person he maketh me to lie down in green pastures he leadeth
me beside the still waters he restoreth my soul we looked at
Jehovah Rafa, the Lord is my healer. And here he is restoring
our soul. He leadeth me in the paths of
righteousness for his name's sake. And we're gonna consider
Jehovah Sidkenu, the Lord, our righteousness. All the names
of him are in this one brief Psalm. Verse four, yea, though
I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, Thou art
with me. We haven't yet looked at Jehovah
Shammah, but that name means He is always with us. He never
leaves us nor forsakes us. The Lord is here. And that's
what David is expressing in this psalm. I will fear no evil for
thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou
preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You remember Jehovah Nisi, Moses
and Aaron and Ur, fighting against the Amalekites down in the valley.
That's what he's talking about here. The Lord has prepared a
table before me in the presence of mine, of my enemies. And he
has anointed my head with oil. My cup runneth over. Surely goodness
and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I will
dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Forever. The Lord Jesus Christ trusted
his father be his shepherd. David knew, you know, it's hard
for us to relate to this relationship that a shepherd has with the
sheep in the natural world and that most of us have not had
much experience with sheep, if any, but David sure understood. He understood the necessity,
the dependence that the sheep had on the shepherd to lead them
to green pastures and to protect them, to defend them against
the bear and the lion. You remember in 1 Samuel chapter
17, when David goes to visit his brothers, when Saul's lined
up his army against the Philistines. And David hears the blasphemy
of, of Goliath and says, who is this uncircumcised Philistine
that he would curse our God. And I'll go up against him. The
Lord will, will, will deliver him into my hand. And we know
that David's a picture of, of Christ in that, in that story. And Saul said, okay, well here,
put my armor on. And David said, no, I've not
tried this armor. This is the armor of flesh. I've
got to go in the power of God. The Lord is my shepherd. And
then we have a picture of Christ going to the cross. And to prove
to Saul that David trusted the Lord to deliver him, David reminds
Saul or tells Saul about when he was a shepherd. And he said,
a bear came and took one of the lambs out of the flock and I
pursued him and I delivered that lamb from the jaws of the bear. And then he said, a lion came
and took a lamb out of the flock and I pursued him and I delivered
that lamb out of the jaws of the lion. Now, who does that
bear and lion represent in the gospel? Well, we know that Satan
is like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. and that
he is a counterfeit Christ. He presents himself as the Christ
who is the Lamb of God. I mean, the lion of the tribe
of Judah who hath prevailed against the lion, against Satan. So David is saying, God's saying
to you and me, when the Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross,
He defeated the works of Satan. He delivered the people of God
from the jaws of a lion. And the bear is a picture of
the law. It's a picture of the law of God. And in one place, I think it's in
Hosea, the scripture speaks of the man who does not believe
the gospel, who who flees from the lion only to be taken in
the jaws of a bear. And there you have a picture
of the religious man who is measuring his salvation by his law keeping. And he thinks because he's delivered
his life from the worldly temptations of sin, he's freed from the lion,
but he runs himself right into the jaws of the bear. And that's
what's going to be the end of so many religious people who
think that they've outwitted Satan, but they're looking to
their law-keeping for the hope of their salvation. And they're
running from, they've been delivered from the lion, but they're right
in the jaws of the bear. That's what the Lord Jesus did.
He fulfilled the law. He made the law honorable. He's
the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believe it. That's why we sing the Lord our
righteousness. Righteousness is full, complete
obedience to the law of God. Know what righteousness is? Christ
Jesus the Lord is the only one that ever did that. You and I
have never been able to keep any part of God's law in a way
that satisfies God's holy justice. Christ did. He did. So we're
not fleeing from a lion into the jaws of a bear. We're looking
to our David who went up against the giant of sin. And he, even
though, and how oftentimes, I'm thankful that what David experienced,
he didn't say a lion came to try to devour the sheep and I
killed the lion before he got to the sheep. You read it, 1
Samuel 17. He didn't say, well, the bear
came and I saw the bear coming and I defeated the bear before.
No, he said, the lion and the bear took a lamb out of the flock
and I pursued after them and I killed them and delivered the
sheep from the jaws of the lion and from the bear. You know what
the Lord keeps doing for you and me? You know, we're still,
I mean, even though he's delivered us on Calvary's cross and he's
secured our salvation, we still are dependent upon him every
day to come get us out of the jaws of the lion and out of the
paws of the bear. We think we're constantly looking
to our lives and to our obedience and our disobedience for some
comfort of salvation. And the Lord has to come deliver
us from that. And he does. He keeps doing it. So we see in this Psalm a picture
of the Lord Jesus Christ praying to his father. And notice when
he says, the Lord, Jehovah, Yahweh, I am, He is my shepherd. And notice He's my shepherd.
He's not just the shepherd of the sheep, of the flock. As a
whole, He's my shepherd. What a blessed thing it is when
the Lord makes Himself to be your shepherd and my shepherd. and we find our comfort and our
peace and our hope in Him. Surely the Lord Jesus Christ
had that union with His Father. And we just read that in John
17, didn't we? Father, even as I am one with
Thee, and I in Thee, and Thou in me, and pray that they should
be one, So whose shepherd is he is my
shepherd. The Lord is my strength and my
song and is become my salvation. That's what Isaiah prayed that
prayer and so did Moses in Exodus chapter 15. He's my strength,
he's my song and he has become my salvation. Behold, Isaiah chapter 40, if
you'd like to turn with me to that passage, let's read it together.
Isaiah chapter 40, verses 10 and 11. Behold, the Lord will come with
strong hand and his arm shall rule for him. Isaiah is prophesying
the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ as the strong right hand
of God. He's gonna come and his arm is
gonna rule for him. And his reward is with him. How is it that his reward is
with him? Well, what did the Lord say to Abraham? He said,
I am. thine shield and thine exceeding
great reward. I'm your reward and he is our
reward. And the father was his reward.
The Lord Jesus Christ was pleasing his father and the pleasure of
his father was his reward and his church was his reward. His work before him. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only one that can send his work ahead of him to recommend him
to God. Men try to do that. Oh, I'm gonna
pray this prayer. I'm gonna do this and do that.
And I'll send it ahead of time to heaven. And that'll be my
treasure that I'll hide in heaven. And God will reward me for that.
No, the Lord Jesus Christ is the only one that could do that.
He sent his work before him. And God was pleased. with his obedience and with his
faithfulness. He shall feed his flock like
a shepherd. He shall gather his lambs with
his arms and carry them in his bosom and shall gently lead them
that are with young. How, you know, this relationship
that the shepherd has with his sheep, how tender it is, how
how loving it is. And here he says, I'm gonna carry
them. When you think about that lamb
that just becomes so obstinate that the shepherd has to break
its leg and then carry it on its shoulder until the leg is
healed, and then puts the lamb back down long time later, and
that lamb never leaves the side of that shepherd after that,
does he? I will carry them. And even when he chastises us,
it's always out of love. It's always out of compassion. He maketh me, I'm sorry, the
first part of verse one of Psalm 23, I shall not want. I shall
not be in want of anything. Everything that God, everything
that I need in this life and in the life to come, God will
provide. Here we have Jehovah Jireh. I
shall not be in want of anything. He's going to provide my righteousness,
my redemption, my sanctification, my wisdom, all the hope of my
salvation. And if he's able to provide that,
is he not able to care for my temporal needs as well? Is he
not able to take care of the physical needs that I have in
this life? He maketh me to lie down in green
pastures. He leadeth me beside the still
waters. Here's our Lord feeding on the
bread of life, the word of God, lying down in peace in the tomb. waiting for the, for the father
to reward him and rise him from the dead. And he leaves me beside
the still waters. You know, the thing about Elijah
on Mount, on Mount Horeb, you know, when he was looking for
God and the fire came, but God was not in it. And the rocks
rent and the wind blew and the earth shook and God was not in
it. And then there was the still small voice. Isn't that the way
God speaks grace to our hearts? line upon line, precept upon
precept, here a little, there a little, a little spoon of honey,
don't eat too much, just enough to suffice you. Lord give me,
David prayed this way, he said, Lord give me the bread that's
convenient for me, that which meets my, that daily bread. You know, we sometimes want to
a feast on bread that's going to somehow sustain us for the
rest of our lives. No, you're going to depend upon
me daily, your daily bread. And it's just going to be little
crumbs falling from the master's table, but that's going to be
sufficient to sustain you another day, another day. And tomorrow
you have to come back for more bread. Thinking about these Psalms relating
to Christ, turn over with me just past Jeremiah to the book
of Lamentations. Lamentations chapter three. Jeremiah is speaking. prophetically
about Christ in the same way that David is speaking prophetically
about Christ. This is all about him. It's all
about him. Look what Jeremiah says. I am.
I am. I am the man that had seen affliction
by the rod of his wrath. That rod that struck the rock
in the wilderness, struck Christ on Calvary's cross. Thy rod and
thy staff, they comfort me is what the Lord's gonna say in
Psalm 23. The justice of God is my comfort. And the justice
of God is our comfort. We don't hope for a salvation
that excludes justice. Our hope of salvation is centered
in the justice of God. God must demand punishment, and
here he is. I am the man that has seen affliction
by the rod of his wrath. He hath led me and brought me
into darkness, but not into light. Surely against me is he turned. He turned his hand against me
all the day. Oh, from noon until three o'clock
in the afternoon, the sky was blackened. I mean, this was darkness
like they had in Egypt that could be felt. This was God forsaking
his son. And the Lord Jesus himself cried
out, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me, taken me into
the night? He's charged me with the sins
of his people and I'm bearing their sins rightfully. He opened
not his mouth because he was guilty. He had no defense. He was bearing the sins of his
people as his own. And here he's lamenting through
the prophet Jeremiah that the rod of God is falling upon him.
My flesh and my skin hath he made old. He hath broken my bones,
he hath builded against me and compassed me with gall and travail. He hath set me in dark places
as they that be dead of old. He hath hedged me about that
I cannot get out. He hath made my chain heavy.
Also when I cry and shout, he shut out my prayer. He hath enclosed
my ways with hewn stones. He hath made my paths crooked.
He was unto me as a bear lying in wait. Here's the Lord Jesus Christ
fulfilling the demands of the law. But when the law When the
law of God saw sin on the Son of God, the law of God was forced
by the justice of God to put him to death. It was the law
of God. He forced me into the mouth of
the bear. It was the law of God that killed
Christ. The law of God demanded justice. It would not be satisfied with
anything less. And as a lion in secret places,
here again, we have the lion and the bear. The Lord Jesus
Christ. Delivered his people from Satan. From hell. He led captivity captive. The gates of hell shall not be
able to prevail against him. He had to go into hell to deliver
us from the jaws of the lion. We were taken captive by Satan
himself. Here's why the Lord did what
he did on Calvary's cross. He had bent his bow and sent
me as a mark for his arrow. He has caused the arrow of his
quiver to enter into my reins. I was a derision to all my people
and their song all the day long. He had filled me with bitterness.
He had made me drunken with the wormwood. You see this, this
is the parable of the gospel, the mystery of the gospel hidden
in a parable. All these scriptures are speaking,
they're speaking symbolically of what the Lord Jesus went through.
That's why we can say in the volume of the book it is written
of me. Go back with me to Psalm 23. Verse three, he restored my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of
righteousness for his namesake. Righteousness had to be established.
Justice had to be fulfilled. The law had to be, had to be
fulfilled. Justice had to be satisfied.
He led him into the paths of righteousness. And when God enables
us to set our affections on things above and rest in the finished
work and glorious person of Christ, he's leading us in the paths
of righteousness. And when he convicts us of our
sin and gives us a hatred for our sin and causes us again and
again and again to come and look to Christ, he's leading us in
the paths of righteousness for his namesake, for his namesake. Yea, though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death. You know, we quote that at funerals,
and there is a valley of a great shadow that we've not yet walked.
But really, the valley of the shadow of death is where we are
walking right now. It's this whole world, this dead
world, spiritually dead. We're confronted with it every
day. this body of death that we carry about on our backs,
it's the valley of the shadow of death. And the Lord says,
I fear no evil. He feared no evil before his
father when he walked through the valley of the shadow. And
if you and I think that this world is dark and and purposeless
and godless and dry and thirsty. What must he have thought? What
must he have felt? You and I have gotten pretty
accustomed to this world, but he was in contradiction to this
world every moment and was dependent upon his father for all of his
comfort and all of his hope and all of his salvation. I will fear no evil for thou
art with me, thy rod and thy staff, they do comfort me. The
rod is the justice of God. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
comforted in knowing that justice is gonna be satisfied at Calvary's
cross. And the staff, the staff, that
crook that the shepherd would use to go bring the lambs back
into the flock. There it is. They are comfort. We're comforted in knowing that
justice was satisfied and we're comforted in knowing that we
have a shepherd that will always draw us back into the fold. He's
not gonna let us wander out in the wilderness and be killed,
be killed by the bear or by the lion. He'll let us be taken by
them. You have that experience every
day, don't you? But did not let us be killed by them. He's going to deliver his children. Thou preparest a table before
me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil,
my cup runneth over. Oh, the Lord Jesus Christ, he's
the anointed one. He's the Messiah. He's the one
that came in the full power of the spirit of God, anointed with
the oil of gladness above his fellows, the anointed one. And I ask again, does God the Father love all of his children and
as faithful to all of his children as he was to his firstborn? Yeah. Yeah, he is. Surely, Surely, without a doubt,
goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And here's my hope. I'm going
to dwell in the house of the Lord forever, forever and ever. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for the good shepherd
who has laid his life down for the sheep. Thank you, Lord, for
being such a faithful shepherd to your son and to all of your
children, calling us out of darkness into your marvelous light and
making us to hear thy voice and to follow after thee. Lord, we
pray that you would continue to forgive us of our sin, keep
us resting in and looking to Christ. For it's in His name
we ask it, amen. 294 in the hardback temple, let's
stand together, 294. Savior, like a shepherd lead
us, much we need thy tender care. In Thy pleasant pastures feed
us, For our use Thy folks prepare. Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus,
Thou hast bought us, Thine we are. Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus,
Thou hast bought us Thine we are.