May it please almighty God to
bless us together this evening as we meditate in his holy word. Let's turn to the book of Psalms.
And we'll turn to Psalm 23, and we'll read the last verse, which
is verse six. The book of Psalms, chapter,
or Psalm 23, rather, and the last verse, verse six. Surely,
goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. and I will dwell in the house
of the Lord forever. I'm sure most of us know that
this, of course, was a psalm of David. It's a well-known psalm,
probably the best-known psalm in the Bible, probably the best
few verses known in the whole of the Bible. But there's wonderful
and glorious truth in it, as David writes and explains to
us his situation, his belief, and the confidence that he had
in his God. And what a blessing it is for
you and me today if we have confidence in our God. That means as we
come to God in prayer, we come believing that we have a God
who does hear and answer prayer. We don't come in vain. And if
we come truthfully and honestly, we'll be waiting and watching
for answers to those petitions. And so as we see how David writes
in this psalm with a positive attitude, and it's encouraging
to realise the wonderful truths contained. He starts off and
he says, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. Again, a very positive statement. Well, David was not a perfect
man. Naturally in his life he was
left to turn against the teaching of God and to commit sin very
grievously. And yet we know that he still
was able to come and to pour out his heart to God in confession
and still believe the great truths which he wrote in Psalm 23. We're
not told when this was written. It doesn't matter really. It's a relevant psalm. It's relevant
words for us. And realize he starts then, the
Lord is my shepherd and I shall not want. And he concludes with
this sixth verse, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all
the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house
of the Lord forever. I suppose we live in a day of possessing evil hearts of unbelief. Sometimes we do dishonour to
our God. It's a very sad thing if we do
dishonour our God. David had that humble confidence
in his God. And it's a great blessing if
you and I have a humble confidence in Almighty God. To realise that
those things which he has done for us, has spoken to us, do
emanate from God. They're not things that we've
dreamt up, or made up, or just thought perhaps occurred, but
we have the wonderful evidence through the work of the Holy
Spirit that they emanate from God himself. And it's a great
blessing, therefore, if we have the evidence of these things,
and then we're able to come humbly, as indeed David did as we read
so many of his Psalms, to realise his attitude, his true attitude
before a holy God, his dependence upon that true and gracious and
blessed God. and to think that he's able to
come down, the last verse, and say, surely, goodness and mercy
shall follow me all the days of my life. Now, it was true
in David's case, and you know it's true in every believer's
case. God knows how that will be performed. It doesn't say that everything
in our lives is going to go smoothly. We won't have any difficulties.
We won't have any trials. We won't have any temptations. It doesn't say that. What it
does say is, surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all
the days of my life. And this was a confidence that
David had. You may remember, he was able
to fight Goliath, that great giant. And it's so interesting
to be able to realize the confidence that he had when he came before
the king, to tell the king how he would be delivered into his
hand and he had a humble confidence in his God. What a blessing to
have like faith. David came to Saul and he told
Saul, thy servant kept his father's sheep and there came a lion and
a bear and took a lamb out of the flock and I went out after
him and smote him and delivered it out of his mouth. And when
he arose against me, I caught him by the beard and smote him
and slew him. Thy servant slew both the lion
and the bear and the uncircumcised Philistine. shall be as one of
them, seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God. And David said, Moreover, the
Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out
of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me. out of the hand of
this Philistine. Well that was a humble confidence
that David was able to tell King Saul. And of course we know it
was proved and it came to pass and David did defeat the Goliath,
not with a sword or a spear but just with simple smooth stone
slung from a sling which God directed and penetrated the forehead
of Goliath and he fell down upon the earth. Well what a mercy
it is that God was able to help David on that occasion and we
have therefore this testimony and David had this evidence of
God's faithfulness to him. He outlined there those two evidences,
with the lion and the bear, and then that third one with Goliath,
and so we can understand him being able to write, surely goodness
and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And we shouldn't
therefore despise God's work in our lives. If God has heard
our prayers, and God has answered our prayers, and God has granted
us perhaps amazing blessings. It may be in natural things,
it may be in our school days, our university days, our work,
whatever it may be, it's a great blessing to know that we have
the same God today that David had all those years ago. God
has not changed in his abilities to do great things. And so with
this wonderful evidence in David's life, he was able to speak like
this. And it would be good for you and me in our lives if God
has heard our prayers. He has answered. He has helped
us to have that humble confidence in our God, and be able to come
and say, therefore, surely because of that which God has done, surely
goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. You know, he tells us in this
Psalm, and it's good to just notice, he restoreth my soul. Well, we know that David was
left to sin greatly. We don't know all the details
of his life. What a wonderful blessing it
is if you and I have come into a far off state, far off from
God as it were. We don't want to read the Bible.
We don't want to pray. We're far off. And then we find God comes and
he restores our soul. Once again, he produces the desire
to read his word. Once again, he gives us that
access and the throne of grace in prayer. And what's the conclusion? It must really be just like David,
he restoreth my soul. It's a very wonderful truth,
a very wonderful favour when Almighty God looks down upon
unworthy sinners who wandered away from God, perhaps wandered
into the broad way, left the narrow way, wandered into the
broad way. God's watched over us. God's
brought us back and that's why David says, he leadeth me in
the path to righteousness for his name's sake. We should not
forget that. You see, God leads his people,
directs his people, blesses his people for his name's sake. So that through our life, through
our testimony, we're able to confirm that it was God that
did these things for us. and we can bless him for it. And he leads us in the path of
righteousness for his name's sake. Oh, we must always remember
that your life and my life is not a life of pleasure on this
earth, to go around just pleasing ourselves. Our life is to do
the will. of Almighty God, to do the will
of our Heavenly Father. And what a blessing, therefore,
if our God comes and gives us grace to do that. What a wonderful
thing it is when he makes all his goodness and mercy to pass
and to follow us. Surely, goodness and mercy shall
follow me all the days of my life. All the days. It doesn't
say just one day. No, it says all the days. You
might remember Moses, that man of God. He was blessed in his
life. He needed God to encourage him. And he needed God to come and
speak to him. There was that time towards the
end of his life when he came and said to the Lord, See thou
hast said unto me, Bring up this people, and thou hast not let
me know whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, I know
thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight. Now
therefore I pray thee, If I found grace in thy sight, show me now
thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy
sight, and consider that this nation is thy people." Well,
here was Moses in a time of need. And what did God say? God answered
him so wonderfully, My presence shall go with thee, and I will
give thee rest. What a mercy for you and me if
we have something before us. In the unknown way, it was the
case with Moses, and God heard his cry. He asked, hadn't he,
if he found grace that he might be shown thy way, my presence
shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. And then he said,
if thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. Well, I'm sure to the true believer,
we want God to go with us. We don't want to go in the unknown
way without the evidence that God is going to be there with
us, to help us and to bless us. And so he says, For wherein shall
it be known here that I and my people have found grace in thy
sight? Is it not that there are ghosts with us? So shall we be
separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are
upon the face of the earth. The Lord then said to Moses,
I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken, for thou hast
found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name. Well, what
a blessing it is if God speaks to you and me like that. What
a wonderful blessing. Now, let's be clear about this.
God doesn't give words. unless you and I are gonna need
those words. Moses needed words to go in his
name and his strength. And you and I would need that.
God doesn't waste words, I say that very reverently. He gives
words when they're needed. And words that you and I can
plead. Plead before God and say thou didst say. And he comes and he asks, I beseech
thee, show me thy glory. And what does the Lord say to
him? I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will
proclaim the name of the Lord before thee, and will be gracious
to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will
show mercy. You see, he was blessed with
that wonderful answer to his prayers, confidence in his God,
and so very similar really to what we have here in David. Surely, goodness and mercy shall
follow me all the days of my life. Yes, it's a wonderful blessing,
isn't it? To realise that we have a God
who knows about us, He knows what is planned for you and me. And in the unknown way, which
is before us, we don't know what is coming, what is there. But
God knows the end from the beginning. And you and I walk by faith and
not by sight. Naturally, we want things that
we can basically grasp naturally. No, God says we are to walk by
faith and not by sight. David walked by faith. Yes, he had the evidence of God's
help in those three previous times, but now he's able to speak
of what God had done and be able to come with that confidence
and say surely goodness and mercy shall follow me. He doesn't say
just tomorrow. He says all the days of my life. All the days of my life. And the wonder of it is that
it's really true to every believer. Every believer God speaks to. Perhaps we don't really appreciate
it. And yet, you see, God does this
for each one of us. Goodness and mercy follows us
all the days of our life. We may come into hard times.
We may come into difficult times. That doesn't devalue a statement
like this. But God still makes his goodness
and mercy follow us, go with us. so that we are instructed,
so that we are directed, so that we are blessed as we pursue the
narrow way till him we view. Indeed, we read, this is really
the Shepherd's Psalm, as I'm sure you know, and we read together
that lovely chapter in the Twelfth of John, which speaks to us so
very clearly, sorry, 10th of John, which speaks to us very
clearly about the Good Shepherd, the Good Shepherd. And he tells
us, he says this, the Lord says, my sheep hear my voice and I
know them and they follow me and I give unto them eternal
life and they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand. My father, which gave them me,
is greater than all. And no man is able to pluck them
out of my father's hand. I and my father are one. It's a wonderful statement, isn't
it? By the Lord. given there to his
disciples and thankfully recorded for us today, that we can be
encouraged by such a statement as this, and we should recognise
that if we are the children of God, we are then the sheep, his
sheep, and as such the Lord tells us very clearly, my sheep hear
my voice and I know them and they follow me. And that is of
course in our natural life and also in our spiritual life. And what a blessing for us today
if we can trace out God's hand upon us and trace out the times
when God has spoken to us, perhaps an occasion, perhaps just once. But you see, if we once heard
the voice of the Saviour, we can believe it will be well with
our souls. And so, what the Lord says is
so true. My sheep, hear my voice. Hear my voice. It's easy to think,
well, of course, I've never really heard the voice of God. Well, we may have done. we may
have done and we haven't really perhaps always realised what
it is. Sometimes it may be a still small
voice. You remember Elijah when he fled
and came to that cave and went into the cave and stood at the
mouth of the cave and there was a great storm and The Lord was
not in the storm. Great earthquake. The Lord was
not in the earthquake. And then we're told, then there
was a still, small voice. And that was the voice to Elijah. My friends, maybe it's something
in your life and my life. Perhaps we're expecting, have
been expecting, some great, wonderful experience. like an earthquake
in our lives. It may not be like that. Maybe
a very quiet, still, small voice. But nonetheless, an effectual
word. Because it directed Elijah. And God's still, small voice
directs you and me. So we should never despise such
things in our life but thankful indeed that God is speaking to
us, that God has taken us in hand and surely that encourages
us to believe. Surely therefore God has come
to me, God has been merciful to me and I can with humble confidence
say surely therefore goodness and mercy shall follow me all
the days of my life. It's very wonderful isn't it
to realize that we have such a kind and gracious God who deals
with us very gently. For the most part God deals with
his people very gently. Sometimes It deals with us more
radically, but generally speaking, He deals very gently toward us. And we prove that the mercy,
God's mercy, it's so great. It's indeed new every morning. Bright is his faithfulness. And
again, the psalmist David tells us in the 103rd Psalm, and he
says this, verse 15 says, As for man, his days are as grass. As a flower of the field, so
he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it,
and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more.
But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
upon them that fear him and his righteousness, and to children's
children, to such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember
His commandments to do them. You see, God is faithful. And my friends, on the other
hand, you and I are to be faithful to God. We expect God to hear
and answer our prayer. We have God's word which directs
us what we should do and what we should say. And so it's a
great blessing if God gives us that desire to keep his covenant
and to remember his commandments to do them. Sometimes we can
be very one-sided in our religion. The Word of God also tells us,
those that honour me, I will honour, and those that despise
me, shall be lightly esteemed. David was not despising his God. And my friends, sometimes we
despise God. It's a very solemn thing, isn't
it? To despise God. It means we're
not believing what God has said. And yet, you see, Dave is able
to tell us because of the first verse. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want to conclude
with these words. Surely, surely that really means
there's no doubt about it. Surely. Goodness and mercy shall
follow me all the days of my life. Well, that's a wonderful
promise. It's a wonderful promise that
David had and was able to lay hold upon. It's a wonderful promise,
my friends, to you and me today. What a blessing then to understand
this gracious God, how he deals with his people. Surely, goodness
and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And it doesn't
stop there. and I will dwell in the house
of the Lord forever. How does that word speak to you
and me? What do we think of that? And
I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. What's our
reaction to that? Is our reaction, well, yeah,
but I don't want that to come just yet. I just want to enjoy
it still. the things of this life. I've
still got a lot of things I want to do. I've still got a lot of
things that I want to come to pass. Well, David was looking
ahead. And I will dwell in the house
of the Lord forever. There was no conditions to that,
just a very plain statement. And it would be a wonderful thing
if you and I can come and also join with that humble belief. Because if God is leading us,
if God has spoken to us, if God has directed us, and we have
the evidence in our heart, the evidence between our soul and
God, that his goodness and mercy shall follow us, we can believe
through his glorious grace we will dwell in the house of the
Lord forever. Not just for a short time. How often we don't understand
the great glory of the work of God and the wonderful blessing
and favour it is to realise that we have a God who looks upon
us in love and mercy and has gone to prepare a place for us
in glory. The apostle, when he wrote the
second epistle to the Corinthians, he tells us this in the fifth
chapter and the first verse. He says, for we know I think
that's a lovely statement, isn't it? For we know that if our earthly
house of this tabernacle were dissolved, We have a building
of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly
desiring to be clothed upon with our house, which is from heaven. If so be that being clothed,
we shall not be found naked, For we that are in this tabernacle
do groan, being burdened. Not for that we would be unclothed,
but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. Clearly the Apostle Paul was
able to direct the Corinthians to the eternal home of the Church
of God, exactly the same as David so many, many years before was
able to say, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Sometimes we're tempted to think
that that which God has done for us, spoken to us, Perhaps
we were mistaken. Perhaps it wasn't true. Perhaps
it was all in the head and it wasn't in the heart. Well, you
may remember there was that case. John Warburton was wonderfully
blessed on one occasion. and blessed so much that he was
in a field by himself and he danced in the field with thankfulness
to God. And the devil came to John Warburton
and he said, I did that. And so John Warburton said, all
right, devil, if you did that, do it again. And of course, the
devil couldn't do it again. It was a clear evidence that
that which God had done in the life of John Warburton was real. Sometimes you and I might be
tempted that those things perhaps which
you and I are relying upon for our eternal good and being, the
devil tells us false. It wasn't true. Well, you can
speak in the same way that John Warburton did and my friends,
the devil won't be able to do it. If he's pretending he did
it the first time, he won't be able to do it again. Because
it is the sovereign work and the sovereign grace of God. Well, here, in this account,
we should be thankful to believe. As I've already mentioned, He
tells us, He restoreth my soul, He leadeth me in the paths of
righteousness, for His name's sake, you see, it's for His honour
and for His glory. Our lives are for that, let's
not lose sight of it. Yea, thy 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. You may remember that in Old
Testament times when the sheep were counted, they passed under
the rod and the rod was used to be able to count them. Thy
rod and thy staff, they comfort me, a sign that you and I are
part of the flock of God. There appears a table before
me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil,
my cup runneth over. How humbling that God comes and
blesses us so that our cup runs over with his love and mercy
and grace. Well, David knew when it was. Yes, he was there in the midst
of his enemies, but God's not limited to any place or any time. God bless David in that situation. My cup runneth over. And therefore
he's able to come and conclude with these beautiful words. Surely, yes, no doubt, surely
because of what's gone before, goodness and mercy shall follow
me. Shall follow me. Let's lay hold
of these promises all the days of my life. Every day, his goodness
and mercy follows us. Wonderful, isn't it? Unworthy
sinners that we are. Every day, his goodness and mercy
follows us. And then to conclude with this,
which is to come, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever. It's a glorious prospect to the church of God. Here we
have no continuing city. but we seek one to come. I hope we're all seeking one
to come. We're all on a journey. My friends,
may that journey end in glory, so that you and I are found at
last with Christ, which is far better, and the whole family
of God in glory. It's a wonderful consideration. It's a wonderful prospect and
it's good if God gives us grace to meditate on these great and
wonderful truths and be able to join with David and by faith
and by his grace be able to say, and I will dwell in the house
of the Lord forever. Amen.