Well, I can't express to you
what a tremendous joy in my heart it is to see you folks again. After 10 long years, I've thought
about you countless times, each of you. My heart's gone out and
prayed for you. The Lord would hold you up, and
he has, hasn't he? I'm amazed how the Lord has kept
you folks together all the years you went without a pastor. And
I think probably it's just evidence of what a pastor you had to start
with. What a man, what a preacher that God used. I loved him. I missed him. I miss his wisdom. I miss his love and his fellowship.
I appreciate your pastor now. I love Moose and love Sandy very
much, been so faithful. And I will tell Larry, while
I'm up here, I don't need any money this time, Larry. Last
time I was out here, you folks, Amanda got me a ticket back home.
I just had surgery and spent all kinds of money, and you guys
gave me all kinds of money. This time, I don't need any money.
One of the first times I've come out here, I could truly say that,
but I don't need any money. Put it back in the offering.
But it is such a blessing to see you. And may God, in his
tender mercy, grant us to worship him in the gospel of his dear
son. I've got a very, very familiar
psalm. And I don't come here to preach
anything that I haven't preached at all. But I've got a very familiar
psalm that I want to preach from tonight. A lot of people have
memorized this psalm. And they say it's the most quoted
psalm. Most of you use Psalms, I guess,
at funerals and at bedsides. I know sometime when I'm in trouble,
I quote this Psalm. And you probably do too. The
23rd Psalms, that's my message tonight. We found it in the 23rd
Psalms. So read these six verses with
me. Psalms chapter 23, and beginning
in verse one. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall
not want. He maketh me to lie down in green
pastures. He leadeth me beside the still
waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth
me in the paths of righteousness for his namesake. Yea, though
I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear
no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort
me. Thou preparest the table before
me in the presence of my enemies. Thou anointest 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. In this psalm, David is praising
his shepherd, Praise in his shepherd for who his shepherd is, for
what he sees in his shepherd, for all the benefits that he's
received from his shepherd. It's just a song, a psalm about
his shepherd. 13 times in these six little
short verses, he mentions his shepherd 13 times. It's a song, a psalms about David's
shepherd. Here in verse one, he tells about
his complete satisfaction that he finds in his shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall
not want. Never want for any good thing. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall
not want. In verse two, he talks about
the rest that his shepherd has led him into. He maketh me to
lie down in green pastures, gives me rest. In verses two and verse
three, he speaks of the goddess that he's experienced from his
shepherd. He leads me beside the still waters. He leads me
in paths of righteousness for his namesake. Aren't you glad,
brothers and sisters, the Lord, when he saves you, he don't just
leave you to yourself? He led you to Himself and then
He leads you every step of the way. Brother Henry Mahan used
to say, if the Lord got us within 10 feet of Heaven's door and
said, I'll leave it to you to make it the rest of the way,
none of us would get in. We'd go astray before we got
there. He leads us. He saves us, and He leads us. In verse 4, David tells of all
his fears that's been dispelled, and he tells how his fears were
dispelled by the mere presence of his shepherd. Look what he
says. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. The very presence
of the shepherd dispels his awful fears. And then verse four, he
tells of the great comfort that he takes in the shepherd's rod
and the shepherd's staff. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort
me. I did a little study on the rod
and the staff. They're two different things
the shepherd used to carry. The rod looks something like
a short baseball bat. It's just a club. Some of them
were very heavy and they had a place they stuck them on their
side. And they said those shepherds there in the east at 20 to 30
yards were deadly when they threw that rod. They could break the
ribs of a lion or the jaw of a bear. Remember the bear and
the lion that came out against David? He used his bare hand,
but they said they could use this club. Sometime when a sheep
began to go astray, they said they could break a hip. They
could bruise a shoulder. They were so accurate. And yet
David said, that comforts me. He protects me from my enemies.
He keeps me from going astray. He smites me sometimes, but he
smites me in love. And the staff, they said they
would take that when a lamb was stuck in the mud or was going
astray, they could reach out and get him with that staff and
pull him back in. David said, that's a comfort
for me. The staff, it comforts me. And here in verse five, David
was writing about the abundance of provision his shepherd made
for him. He said, he prepares a table
before me. He prepares a table before me. It wasn't that the Lord gave
David the ingredients to prepare his own supper. He said, he prepares
a table. And not only does David's shepherd
prepare the meal, he said, he prepares the table. He lets me
sit down. It's not like taking a packed
lunch and eating it on your way. Or eat it in fear because of
the enemy. He says he prepares a table I
can sit down and eat it right in the midst of my enemies. Thy
shepherd prepares a table before me. And he says this, he anoints
my head with oil. They said the sheep used to love
this oil that the shepherd carried on him. Very expensive oil. But
the shepherds always carried abundance because the skin on
the face of the sheep would get very scaly and dry. And he'd
pour oil on his head to soften the skin. It kept the gnats and
the flies away from this sheep. They loved to pour oil on their
heads. And then he summed this up and
said, my cup runneth over. David was thinking about his
shepherd, meditating on his shepherd. And the meditation was so sweet,
he just got overwhelmed with the joy of it. He said, not only
is my cup up to the brim, but my cup runs over. The way Peter
would describe it, it's joy unspeakable and full of glory. You think
that way about your shepherd sometime. when you think about
his benefits towards you and who he is. And here in verse
six, David expresses his total confidence in the shepherd's
goodness and mercy. Look what he says. Goodness and
mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. Boy, it's good
to live in that confidence, isn't it? Goodness and mercy, aren't
you glad mercy follows you? I've often thought of my Christian
life, not when I was lost, that too, but since I've been a believer
in the Lord Jesus Christ. What a mess I have sometimes
made of things. I look back on my Christian life
and sometimes I've broken hearts. I've just hurt people. There's
no way to fix it. I know I've sometimes grieved
the Lord, I've hurt His children, hurt His church, and I look back
on my life, sometimes remember these things, and I say, what
a mess I've made! And then I remember mercy. Mercy
has been following me all this way to clean up my messes that
I've made. Isn't it wonderful to live in
the confidence? Mercy, yes, I've made a mess,
but mercy is following me all the days of my life. And the
goodness of the Lord's been following me. I tell you, brothers and
sisters, when I peel of my dying head, I want to look back on
my life and see mercy following me. I remember one of the old
preachers over in London many, many years ago, a very famous
preacher, and he was dying. And a fellow come to him and
knelt down by his bed and said, Dear brother, you're going to
receive your reward. And the old preacher opened his
eyes and said, Brother, I'm going to receive mercy. I want mercy
in front of me, I want mercy around me, and I want mercy following
me, don't you? Mercy, what a precious word.
David closes this psalm, and he closed it like this, and I
shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. In the Father's house, Christ
said, are many mansions. If it weren't so, I'd have told
you. He ain't gonna lie to nobody, is he? He ain't gonna lie just
to comfort us. If it weren't so, I'd have told
you. But in my Father's house are many dwelling places. And
David said, my name is on one of them. One of them is reserved
for me. Wouldn't it be wonderful to die
in that assurance? In my Father's house. And I'll
be there for how long? Forever. No changes. No decays, no diminishing. I'll be there forever. Wouldn't
it be wonderful to live our lives this way? Wouldn't it be wonderful
to live every day your life in the faith of this Psalm? Wouldn't
that be wonderful to do that? You know it's possible to do
that? I bet David did, with all the messes he made sometimes.
He seemed to live his life in the joy and the confidence of
this psalm. If we do, if we do live our lives
that way, and God give us grace to, I don't, I wish I could,
but if you're going to, you're gonna have to know two things
right off the bat. And first of all, we're gonna
have to know who the shepherd is. Who is David's shepherd? He identifies him here with one
word, the Lord is my shepherd. What a title for a shepherd. This is the name, the Jewish
name for God, Jehovah. This is the Lord, Jehovah. The
Jewish national title for the name of God. The word has two
essential meanings. If you look the word Lord up,
as it's written here, it just has two essential meanings. One
is self-existent. Self-existent. It's where really
we get our name sovereign. Because self-existent means independent. He's independent. He's a sovereign
God, and He's independent of everything and everybody. He's dependent upon nothing,
but everything is dependent upon Him. He is self-governing, self-determining. He's autonomous. He is not bound
by anyone or anything, but his own sovereign character and free
will. We talk about free will. I don't
know if free will is rumpin' rampin' out here, but it is back
east. Everybody's got free will. Ain't but one in this universe
got free will, and that's David Shepard. because he is the Lord. He said this to David. He said,
David, if I was hungry, I wouldn't ask you. Why not, Lord? Because the world is mine and
the fullness thereof. The cattle on a thousand hills
is mine and the hills too. Job got lifted up. He got sort
of somewhat disturbed with the Lord because the trial he was
in. And the Lord came to Job and said, I want to ask you one
question. Where were you when I laid the
foundation of the world? Where was Job? He hadn't even
been yet at it. This is the Lord, the sovereign
Lord. who hath given to him that he
should repay him. Whatsoever is in the whole heaven
is mine. In the earth is his, and now
heaven is his. Everything is his, and he is
the Lord, and he needs nothing from us. He is dependent upon
nobody. He's self-existent. Is that your
shepherd? Somebody said, my shepherd's
not that way, then you don't have David's shepherd. Bush reminded us in the bulletin
this week about the first time I ever came out here and preached
for you folks. Never will forget it, we're sitting
right there, me and John were sitting right there. Just before
I got up to preach, John leaned over to me and said, now you
won't preach God too sovereign for these folks. I never, I forgot
that. Well, who is David Shepard? He's
the sovereign. He's the Lord. He is the Almighty. I can't leave this pulpit and
walk to those doors without him. Every breath I take, every heartbeat,
every step, every movement, I am utterly dependent upon the Lord. But he doesn't look to me for
anything. The Lord is my shepherd. That's the first definition.
And the second definition is this, eternal. The self-existent, eternal Lord
is my shepherd. What He was in eternity, He is
now. What He is now, He will forever
be. From everlasting to everlasting,
He's God. He's eternal. He knows no change,
he cannot change. You cannot find his beginning,
and you cannot find his end. If you could take the wings of
the morning, and take the wings of faith, and go all the way
back to the foundation of the earth, and then dive off the
foundations of the earth, and soar back into eternity, as far
back as you can go, God is there. David Shepard is there. He's
eternal. eternal Lord. That's who David's
shepherd is. I tell you Walt, this is an amazing
thing to have a shepherd like this, ain't it? He's not this
little weak Jesus that we hear so much about, hoping somebody
will do something for Him, up in heaven wringing His hands,
frustrated, confused. No, He's the Lord, and He's eternal. He's the same yesterday, today,
and forever. And when the Holy Spirit is pleased
to bring us to the knowledge of who he is. We'll never get over it. We'll
never get over it. And sometimes he passes by religious
folks and he reveals himself to some open and profane sinner.
He did it in cross day, didn't he? Passed by the Pharisees and
the scribes and revealed himself to publicans and harlots. The
Lord Jesus said, you Pharisees are going to sit here and die
in your sins, in your self-righteousness. You're going to watch the harlots
and the publicans go into the kingdom of heaven. He did that
all the time, didn't he? All the way back in the Old Testament.
Remember when Israel was coming over into the land of promise? They were on the Jordan River,
and they sent the two spies over into the land of promise to spy
out the land. And they came to this harlot's
house. the harlot Rahab's house. And boy, the city of Jericho
was shut up. Everybody was scared to death.
And the harlot hid the two Jewish spies under the flax, and she
came up to talk to them, and here's what this old harlot said.
We have heard how the Lord dried up the Red Sea for you. We've
heard how you killed the two kings, Og and Shahan, the Amorites. You utterly destroyed them. And
when we heard these things, our hearts melted. And there remained
strength in no man. And then she made this wonderful
statement. For we know this, she said, that
the Lord is your God. That's Him. That's who He is.
And poor sinners just like us know Him. We know Him. When the Lord is revealed to
our understanding, oh, it's life changing, isn't it? It'll make
a new creature out of you to know David's Lord. So that's
the first thing, brothers and sisters. If we wanna live in
the faith of Psalms chapter 23, we're gonna have to know who
the shepherd is. Who is he? The Lord, the self-sufficient
eternal Lord. And we're gonna have to know
this. This is essential. He's my Lord. The Lord is my
Shepherd Christ. He's mine and I am His. This sovereign, this self-existent,
this eternal Lord is my Lord. And ain't but one way to know
Him is yours. He has to be revealed to you. You've got to open up
your heart that you may know Him. We can stay right here in the
book of Psalms, the 22nd Psalms, and David describes to us here
in this 22nd Psalms who his Lord is. I want you to look back here
in Psalms chapter 22. We don't have to go to the New
Testament to find out who David's shepherd is. Look in Psalms chapter
22 in verse one. My God, my God, Why hast thou
forsaken me? You remember who said that? Jesus said that, didn't he? The
Son of Mary said that. Remember where he was when he
said that? On the cross of Calvary. Who is David Shepherd? He's the
Lord who hung on the cross. And look what he said down in
verse 16. Dogs have compassed me. The assembly
of the wicked have enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my
feet. Who said that? Christ said that. He said it hanging on the cross.
Verse 18, they part my garments among them and cast lots upon
my vesture. We find out something here about
who David Shepard is. He's the Lord, the everlasting
Lord, he's David Shepard, and he's the one who gave his life
to redeem David from his sins. And we come over to the New Testament
in John chapter 10, and the Lord Jesus himself identifies who
David is speaking about here, and he said, I am the good Shepard.
And the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. I mentioned this the other day,
and Cindy said, I never even realized that. I said, in the
Old Testament, the sheep often gave their life for the shepherd. Happened so often. But remember
in Exodus chapter 12? Those shepherds going out in
their flocks and getting a lamb without spot and blemish and
cutting his throat and putting his blood over the doorpost.
And at midnight, when God passed through, he saw the blood and
he saw those shepherds behind the blood and he passed over
them. But when you come to the New Testament, it's the shepherd
giving his life to redeem the sheep. I am the good shepherd. And David said, he's my shepherd.
He gave His life, my sovereign Lord, my eternal Lord, the Lord
of glory laid down His life to redeem my soul from death, to
redeem me from my sin. Brothers and sisters, I've had
people to ask me, why do you believe in particular redemption? I tell you, if it was for nothing
else, that I believed in particular redemption, when I say particular
redemption, that the Son of God purchased a great host of people,
purchased all His elect, paid all their sin debt, and He paid
the sin debt of nobody but His elect. But the reason we believe
that He did all of that, because you cannot put the Lord of Glory
on a tree and say He did not accomplish something. And say
He had a purpose, but He failed in His purpose. The Lord of Glory
will accomplish His purpose. And when he went to the cross
of Calvary, he took the sins of all his people and made them
his own and suffered for those sins and put them away, purged
them away by the sacrifice of himself. They're gone. Who did that? My shepherd. I am the good shepherd. I laid down my life for the sheep. Brothers and sisters, do you
ever mourn over your sins? Do you ever confess your sins?
Do you feel it working in your heart? Well, you do. Every believer
feels that. But I'll tell you something about
our sins. When we mourn over them, when we weep over them,
when we confess them, when we grieve over them, there's only
one true way for a believer to think about his sins. And that's
2,000 years ago on that cross, outside the old city walls of
Jerusalem, his sins were purged away. You believe that? That's what the shepherd did.
All the sins of your past, all the sins of your present, all
the sins that you committed future, they're gone. They've been purged
by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, the shepherd. Is this
your shepherd, the Lord of glory, saying, my God, my God, having
his hands pierced, being stripped and hanging naked to suffer for
your sin? Can you say with David, he's
my shepherd, he's my job, and I'm his. The Lord is my shepherd. No wonder David said, I shall
not want. What could a man want for? I sure don't want for another
way, do you? I don't want for another means
of salvation. I sure don't want another Redeemer.
He's forgiven you of all trespasses. You can't have any more forgiveness
than that. You're accepted in the Beloved.
Can you earn or have more acceptance than that? You are complete in
Him. Can we add anything to that?
We shall not want. Christ is enough, isn't He? Old
Scott Richard used to say, if Christ is all you've got, then
you've got enough. You got enough. You can face
this life and you can face the life to come with him and him
alone. I shall not want. That's my shepherd, David said. The Lord Jesus identified himself
as David's shepherd in another way, too. Not just that the good
shepherd gave his life for his sheep, but he made this statement. He said, other sheep I have.
Which are not of this fold, they're not of this flock, they're not
of the Jewish fold. Then also I must bring. And there's gonna be one fold
and one shepherd. Jew or Gentile, they're one in
Christ. And we have one shepherd. One
church, one head over the church. The Lord not only chose his sheep
and redeems his sheep, and he brings his sheep. Remember the
story that he told of the 99 sheep, the 100 sheep the shepherd
had, and he lost one, and he goes out after the one until
he finds it. And when he finds it, what does
he do? He lays it on his neck, and he pulls him tight, and he
hugs him up, And he brings him home and he calls together his
friends and his family and said, come rejoice with me for I have
found my sheep, which was lost. He always finds his sheep lost
and he saves them. I was telling them last Sunday
morning, I had a couple of, I've had three or four people tell
me, professing Christians tell me, well, I've never been lost.
You know what I tell them? Then you've never been saved.
If you've never been lost, you don't need a shepherd to find
you. I come to seek and to save that
which was lost. And here's why you'll never get
over it. When the shepherd found you, he made you to know that
you're lost. He won't find you until he makes
you to know that you're lost. And when he finds you, you're
so happy you'll never want to go astray again. That old song
that we've sometimes sang. Perverse and foolish, oft I strayed,
but yet in love he sought me, and on his shoulder gently laid
me, and home rejoicing he bought me. He bought me home. He found me. Aren't you glad
that he found you? That's why you're still here,
brothers and sisters. That's why you're afraid to go
back to your old sin and your way. But one that can find you,
and that's the shepherd. He knows where you're at, and
he found you. And when our shepherd finds us
and reveals himself to us, then we can truly say, The Lord is
my shepherd. He's my shepherd. Now let's see how necessary,
quickly it is for the Lord to be my shepherd. Because if the
Lord is not our shepherd, then we could just stop right here.
Nothing else that we read in this Psalm is even possible if
the Lord is not our shepherd. But if the Lord is our shepherd,
look what he does. The first thing he does in verse
two, he makes me to lie down in green pastures. What's he do? He gives us rest. Did you ever in your wildest
imagination think that somebody as wild as yourself could find
rest for your soul? I spent all my teenage years,
I lived in turmoil in my soul. The Lord made me to know that
I was lost. He made me to know that I was
coming to judgment. I tried my best to save myself.
I made all kinds of promises and there was no rest for my
soul. And I was absolutely amazed when
He gave me His rest. We're all like that Gadarene
maniac in a way, aren't we? All of us were full of devils.
He was out in the tombs crying day and night and he was cutting
himself with stones. Left his family, left his home
until the Lord Jesus Christ came where he was and clothed him,
put him in his right mind and set him down at his feet and
gave him rest. And that's amazing to me. Come
unto me, all you that labor and heavy laden, and I will give
you rest." What kind of rest does He give? He gives you rest
for your soul. He gives you quietness in your
conscience. He gives you peace in your mind.
He heals your broken heart. He makes you whole. And you can
sit down and rest. Aren't you amazed that you can
rest? Oh, I'm amazed sometimes that I have rest in this weary,
troubled, uncertain world where we struggle with sin almost every
day, and yet He has given us peace. He's given us rest for
our soul. I was reading a book several
years ago by Philip Keller. He wrote a book on the shepherd's
look at the 23rd Psalm. He was a shepherd himself. His
mom and dad were missionaries in Africa, and they sent him
back to the States as a young teenager. And he grew up and
bought a little farm up in Maine and began to raise sheep. And
he wrote a book, A Shepherd's Look at the 23rd Psalm. And in
that psalm, he said there was three conditions that must be
met before the sheep can lay down and rest. The first condition
he said there had to be, his belly had to be full. He had
to be well fed. They will stand up, he said,
and pick grass until they're absolutely wore out if their
bellies aren't full. They will not lay down if their
thirst is not quenched. They'll continue to go about
looking for water to quench their thirst. He said only when a shepherd's
belly is full and his thirst is quenched will he lay down
and rest. Did you notice in this psalm
those two conditions were met? He makes me lie down where? In
green pastures. He leads me where? Beside still
water. The shepherd had fed this sheep.
He had quenched the sheep's thirst, and so he lays down. Listen to
what the prophet said about our shepherd. He shall feed his flock
like a shepherd. Revelation 7 17 says the lamb
which is in the midst of the throne Now I like that don't
you where is our Shepherd? What he said not to be a lamb,
but he's in the midst of the throne And chapter 5 it said
he was in the midst of the elders. So here you have the shepherd,
he's in the midst of the throne, there he's God. And he's in the
midst of the elders, there he is man. The shepherd is God-man. And the prophet said, the lamb
which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them and shall
lead them to live in fountains of water. That's what the shepherd
does. He feeds us and he quenches our
thirst. And how does he do it? With himself.
I tell you, when our faith begins to feed upon his broken body,
And our thirst is quenched by his redeeming blood. He feeds
us indeed, doesn't he? He fills the hungry with good
things. Blessed are they that hunger
and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Sometimes you come to hear a
message. Moose gets up to preach, and oh my goodness, don't it
feed your soul? It's just like going out into
the green pastures and eating until you're full, isn't it?
Sometimes you'll sing one of those old blessed hymns, and
it just feeds your soul. Sometimes in prayer your soul
is fed. Sometimes when you're reading
the scriptures yourself, your soul is fed. And your thirst
is quenched, and you're full. And what do you do? You just
lay down and rest. You rest in the Lord Jesus Christ,
because he's fed you like a good shepherd. Calvin said this, secondly,
for a sheep to lay down and rest, he has to be free from pest. has to be free from pest. He
said those sheep are so peculiar, if anything is bothering them,
they can't lay down and rest. Lice get on their face or gnats,
they get up and shake their heads and walk and sometimes they'll
get against a bush and rub themselves raw, getting gnats away from
them. That's what this anointing oil was about. He anoints my
head with oil. That only softened the skin of
the shepherd, but it kept these gnats away. These things that
anoint them, the bugs, the fleas, it kept those things away from
them. And then they could lay down
and rest. He anointeth my head with oil. That's the way He gets
rid of the pest that keeps us from resting. And when we come
to the New Testament, we know something about what this anointing
means, don't we? You have an anointing from the
Holy One, and you know all things. And listen to this, the anointing
which you have received of Him abideth in you. And you have
need that no man teach you. But that same anointing teacheth
you of all things, and is true and is no lie. And even as he
has taught you, you shall abide in him. And what is this anointing? Well, it's the blessed Holy Spirit,
isn't it? It's the Spirit of God's Son that he sends into
our hearts, crying, Father, Father, that's the anointing that we
have. And when He comes to our heart, He not only leads us,
but Christ said He's the comforter. He comforts us. He reveals Christ
to us. He takes the things of Christ
and shows it to us. He shows us that we have a saving
interest in Christ. He bears witness with our spirit
that we are indeed sons of God. And what does that do? It removes
these pests. And we can lay down and rest.
You say, Bruce, you're telling us now that believers have no
pests? Oh, we got pests. Yeah, we got pests. He mentioned
walking through the valley of the shadow of death. There's
some pests there, isn't there? You talk about the valley of
the shadow of death. Keller mentioned that. He said,
Those shepherds in the east used to take their sheep up in the
mountains in the early spring where the tender grass was growing.
And the bear and the lions and the wolves would always be hiding
in those valleys, ready to pounce out and get a lamb. Walking through
the valley of the Shadda Death, there's pests there. He prepares
a table before me in the presence of my enemy. Oh, there's pests
there. We have pests. But here's the thing about our
shepherd. He gives us rest to the degree and extent that things
don't bother us and pester us and keep us from our rest. Man, as you go through this sinful
life, there's all kinds of pests. But don't you have rest in spite
of them? Yeah, you do. You do. Robinson wrote that blessed old
hymn that we often sing. Things that once were wild alarms
cannot now disturb my rest. clothed in everlasting arms,
pillared on the loving breast. Oh, to lie forever here, doubts
and care and self-resign, while he whispers in my ear, I am his
and he is mine. When he bears witness by this
anointing, this Holy Spirit to my heart, I'm yours and you're
mine. What can you do? You can rest. No matter what temporal circumstances
you're in that don't agree with your nature, you can rest. But
since Cindy and I have been reading through the book of Acts, we
have devotions every morning. We just finished through the
book of Acts. In the 22nd chapter of Acts, the apostle Paul stood
before Agrippa, king of Agrippa. Remember that? And Bernice and
Festus, and they gathered all of the, everybody who was anybody
who was there that day. And all the plump, man, they
were dressed to the hilt, getting ready to have a big feast. But
a gripper said, I want to hear from this man they call Paul,
this apostle. I want to hear what he's got
to say. And they brought Paul out, and he had a chain on him.
They bound him with chain, taking him to Rome to be tried. And
they brought him out, and he stood in front of all of this
huge congregation, dressed in a hilt. And you know the first
words out of that man's mouth? I thank myself happy. Don't you know a gripper snared,
a fester snared beneath him? Oh my goodness, what's the matter?
He said, Jay, I'm happy, he said. And you know how he closed his
argument? I wish everybody in this room
was just like me. He had a shepherd. He had a shepherd
that was a great shepherd that fed him, that had given him rest. And nothing, no matter what circumstances
he was in, interfered, interrupted that rest that he had. Brethren, that's the shepherd
I'm talking about. That's the rest I'm talking about he gives.
If he's not the Lord, he can't give that kind of rest. He has
to feed you to give you rest. And he has to remove the pest,
and it's not so much removing the pest, it's just giving you
rest in spite of the pest. And this last thing Keller said
about for a sheep to lay down and rest is this. He had to know the shepherd was
in his presence. Keller said he was amazed when
he had somebody, if he had to go on a little business trip
or something, and he would hire somebody to come in to take care
of his sheep, to lead them and feed them and things. And he
said he would come back after just a few days, and those sheep
would have lost weight. They would be so anxious that
he'd have to go around and talk to them and take some time to
get them calmed down. Because he said, they're not
comfortable when the shepherd's presence is not among them. What does the Lord's presence
mean to you? David said, though I walk, Through this valley of
the shadow of death, with all kinds of dangers, I will fear
no evil. Why, David? Because thou art
with me. The Lord's promised presence
is with us, so that we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper. And
since he said, I'll never leave you or forsake you, I will not
fear what man can do unto me. I've often said, brothers and
sisters, I'm as serious about this as I can be. I'd rather
be in hell with Christ than in heaven without Him. That's how
much I value His presence. Don't you? Nothing can harm me. Nothing can make me afraid. Nothing
can disturb me if my sovereign Lord My Redeemer is present with
me and he's promised I'll go with you always Even to the end
of the world. I imagine this is why saints
that lay on their deathbed. They're quoting this song. I
Will fear no evil. I'm facing death. It don't matter.
I The Lord's with me. The Lord is with me. The old prophet said, he that
dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High, what is that?
That's his presence. He shall abide under the shadow
of the Almighty. What is the shadow of death?
When you have the shadow of the Almighty to dwell under. His
presence shall be as a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from
the heat and for a place of refuge and for a shelter from the storm
and the rain. And His presence has been a strength
to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge
in the storm, a shadow from the heat when the blast of the terrible
ones is as the storm against the wall. His presence meets
all our need. It's a wonderful old psalm, ain't
it? And here we are, and I hope we're living in the faith of
it. And we'll face death, but beyond that is what? Is our Father's
house. And the shepherd is bringing
us there. As sorry and low down as we are, the sinners we are,
our shepherd is bringing us to Father's house. And we'll be
there for how long? The Lord is my shepherd. O gracious Lord Jesus, we wish that we could speak of
you as highly as you deserve, make your glory known, but we
utterly fail. I pray tonight that you'll take
your word and bring it to the heart of these dear people, your
dear people, your saints, your sheep, your family, your loved
ones, and bless them with it. And they'll leave here being
reminded that the Sovereign Lord is their Redeemer and He's their
Shepherd. In Christ Jesus' wonderful name,
Amen. Brother Sean.