Well, let us turn to God's Word
once again, and I wanted to turn back to the familiar words of
Psalm 23 that we were considering last Thursday. I remarked then
the reason why I felt drawn to this very familiar Psalm. As I said, on that occasion,
it's probably the best-known part of Scripture. If you ask
the proverbial man in the street, he'd probably be familiar with
Psalm 23, even in a day where there is great ignorance of the
Word of God. It's a familiar word, but it
is a most comforting word, and I felt drawn to it because, as
I remarked last time, I'm due to take a funeral at Hagen tomorrow. The lady I I think I've met her
probably twice. I did bury her mother about 14
years ago and she's died obviously and the brother asked if I would
take the funeral and then when I saw him he asked if I'd choose
some suitable hymns and my thought was, well what shall I choose?
I hardly know this woman. He told me she'd been baptised
as a professed believer at the age of 17 As far as I was aware,
while she'd never been to Hagen Chapel, she'd been living in
Hagen for many years, I don't think she'd been anywhere, but
she had suffered with mental afflictions, and I thought, well,
I'll go to the Word of God and sort of the Psalms, so I thought,
oh, I'll sing the metrical Psalm 23. So that was what brought
me really to the Psalm, and you may remember, those who were
present, that we did look at it, or looked at part of it last,
week and we had a prayer meeting at Hedge End yesterday evening
and we looked at it again on those occasions looking at the
words that we have in the second verse. He maketh me to lie down
in green pastures or as the margin says in pastures of tender grass
he leadeth me beside the still waters and I sort of say something
with regards to that divine rest that the Lord is pleased to grant
to his people. What a remarkable rest. The green
pastures or the pastures of tender grass
and the still waters. Does he not remind us that our
rest is all together in the Lord Jesus Christ and in the doctrine
of Christ. We can think of those words in
the gospel. come unto me all ye that labour
in a heavy laden I will give you rest take my yoke upon you
learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find
rest unto your souls so we thought a while of that divine rest well
I thought as we've got the funeral tomorrow it might be suitable
to look again at the words of the psalm and I suppose words
that make the psalm so suitable for singing in the mythical version
at a funeral. I think of the words that we
have in the fourth verse turning tonight into that particular
part of the psalm. Yea, though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou
art with me. And just that particular part
of the psalm In a sense, it speaks of the divine presence. I will
fear no evil, says David, for thou art with me. And the circumstances in which
David found such comfort by the presence of his Lord, his shepherd,
because he was in the valley of the shadow of death and I
want to try to think in the sense of that expression that strange
expression really the shadow of death and the theme really
the divine presence in the shadow of death is what I want to try
to take up first of all to notice how that In a sense, this
expression may bear a twofold meaning. Firstly, it clearly
refers to death itself, the awful shadow that comes with death. And we know that in Scripture
there is a threefold death that is clearly spoken of. First of
all, there's that spiritual death, And he comes in there in the
Garden of Eden, when God creates the man after his image and his
likeness, made to have fellowship with his gods. But then God puts
the man to a very stern test and tells him of the tree, of
the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for
in the day that thou eatest of it thou shalt surely die. If Adam disobeys that command
that God gives him in the garden, if he partakes of that one tree
amongst all the trees, the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, well disobedience will bring death. In the day that
thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. And Adam partakes. Eve is tempted by Satan through
the serpent she partakes, he gives to her husband, he partakes
with his open eyes and they're both now in a state of spiritual
death. And that spiritual death of course
is evident in that there is a very real separation there between
God and his creatures. God comes into the garden in
the cool of the day and what do they do? They try to hide
themselves amongst the trees of the garden. They can't hide
themselves of course. God is that one who is omnipresent,
he's omniscient, he's everywhere, he sees all things, he knows
all things. and they have to confess what
they've done, and then God does separate them all together. He
drives them out of the garden, out of that paradise that he
had made for his creatures, the Garden of Eden. It was paradise.
It was a place where they could have communion with God, but
now that's all gone, and they're driven out. They're in that state now, of
course, of separation. They're spiritually dead. Your
iniquities have separated between you and your God. Your sins have
hid his face from you, says the Prophet. And that's the condition,
of course, in which all the descendants of Adam are born in. You can
bring a clean thing out of an unclean, we're all born. physically
alive yes that's wonderful isn't it when the baby is born and
there's that sound of life but that little child comes into
this world dead in trespasses and sins the offspring of sinful
parents and it is of course the ministry of the law when God
begins to deal with his people it's by that ministry of the
law in which God shows the sinner his true state, his spiritual
death. The commandment, Paul says, which
was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. When he was
a self-righteous Pharisee, he thought there was life for him
in the keeping of the law of God, but he had to discover that
that law was a spiritual law. and he was a man who was dead
in trespasses and sins and he had to learn what his true state
was, even by the Lord of God. And so, remember how he goes
on in 2 Corinthians 3 to speak of the Lord as administration
of death and administration of condemnation. And yet, what do
we read here in the text? These remarkable words Though
I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, says David,
I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Thou art with me. It is only God's presence that
can bring any deliverance when we're in that awful place where
we're brought to realize what our true condition is, that we're
dead. were sinners. The Lord entered that the offense
might abound, says Paul, but where sin abounded, Christ doth
so much more abound. There is then first of all that
spiritual death that's there at the very beginning in the
third chapter of Genesis. But then subsequent to that there's
also physical death. If that spiritual death is the
separation between God and his creature, that alienation, that
enmity, well, physical death, of course, is the separation
of the body and the soul. The Lord God formed the man of
the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath
of life, and he became a living soul. Man is body and soul. That's what human nature is.
And of course the wonder of wonders is that it was that human nature,
that holy thing that was conceived by the Holy Ghost in the womb
of the Virgin Mary that was joined to the Eternal Son of God. That
holy thing, that human body, that human soul, that holy thing
united to the Eternal Son in the mystery of the Incarnation. man is body and soul. And of course, when the man is
put on probation there in the garden, as it were, and God ushers
that word of command in the 17th verse of chapter 2, we have a
marginal reading, the expression, they shall surely die, In the
margin we're told literally in the Hebrew it says, dying thou
shalt die. Dying thou shalt die. It certainly indicates the certainty
of death. But there are two aspects here.
There's an initial dying, which was immediate. That spiritual
death was immediate. But there would also be a subsequent
dying. Dying thou shalt die. In due
time, Adam would die. And so we have the record. We
go back to those opening chapters, those remarkable chapters at
the beginning of Genesis. When we come to chapter 5, what
do we read? Verse 3, Adam lived 130 years
and begat a son in his own likeness after his image. In other words,
that son was born dead in trespasses and sins. And Adam called his
name Seth. and the days of Adam after he
had begotten Seth were 800 years and he begat sons and daughters
and all the days that Adam lived were 930 years and he died and
he died Adam died physically he had died spiritually right
there in in the very act of sinning in Genesis 3 but there There's
a few chapters later, although many, many hundreds of years
have passed, Adam nearly a thousand years
old and he died. To everything there is a season,
a time, to every purpose under heaven, says the preacher, a
time to be born and a time to die. A time to be born, a time
to die. then shall the dust return to
the earth as it was, and the Spirit to God who gave it." Oh,
there is that timing. It is appointed unto man once
to die, and then cometh the judgment. And then, we come thirdly then
to that other death that's spoken of in Scripture, and that is
eternal death. There's spiritual death, there's
physical death, there's also eternal death. Our spiritual state, whatever
it is, is confirmed when we come to die. If we're in grace, we go to heaven. If we're still
in nature, we go to hell. How important our state is when
we come to the end of our mortal lives here upon the earth. Where
the tree falleth, there shall it be, says the preacher, Ecclesiastes
11, 36. We are what we are when we come
to the end of our days. And hell is another place of
separation. There is there an eternal separation
from God when the Lord Jesus tells the parable of Lazarus
and the rich man and each of them dies and they go to their
appointed place and do you remember how the Lord says there's a great
gulf fixed between where the rich man was and where Lazarus
was there's a great gulf fixed there's that awful eternal separation
no wonder some we read of some in scripture who through fear
of death were all their lifetime subjects to bondage. There were some who were fearful
because of the finality of the situation when we come to die. However, here we're reminded that death,
in a sense, is a shadow. We read of the shadow of death. It's quite a remarkable statement
really, the shadow of death. Why so? Well, for the believer
it is a shadow, because of the Lord Jesus Christ. When we come
to the end of that great 15th chapter in 1 Corinthians, we're
told how death is swallowed up. Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, the
strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who giveth
us the victory through the Lord Jesus Christ. O death is followed
up in victory in the Lord Jesus Christ. When we think of the
Lord Jesus Christ and His ministry, how He's touched with the feeling
of all His people's infirmities, Now that the Lord Jesus Christ
himself tasted death, that's what we read in Hebrews 2 verse
9, he tasted death, he died. But of course death was unable
to hold him, he rose again. As Paul says there at the beginning
of that 15th chapter in 1 Corinthians, he died according to the Scriptures.
He was dead and buried and the third day he rose again according
to the Scriptures. Well, it's all in accordance
with what God has revealed to us here in the Scripture then.
There is comfort in the Lord Jesus Christ, even when He comes
to the end and death. There's comfort for those who
are in the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is what David is declaring,
surely, in this verse. Yea, though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou
art with me. We can think then of the expression,
the shadow of death, in that very sense of emphasizing the
solemn truth of death. But there's a second meaning.
There's a second meaning, I believe, from what we see in scripture,
where that particular expression is used on a number of occasions.
In the second meaning we see that the expression really has
reference to great distresses that might come upon the people
of God. Dark afflictions, perplexing providences, and heavy trials. All these things come upon the
people of God. If we turn to another psalm,
just for a while, to Psalm 44, and look at what we read here
in this psalm, at verse 9 and the following few verses and
then at verse 19 Psalm 44 verse 9 the psalmist says but thou hast
cast off and put us to shame and goeth not forth with our
armies Thou makest us to turn back from the enemy, and they
which hate us spoil for themselves. Thou hast given us like sheep,
appointed for meat, and has scattered us among the heathen. And so
he goes on, and we come through to verse 19. Thou hast broken
us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of
death. All that he is speaking of previously
is spoken of in being covered with the shadow of death when
God was not with the armies of Israel, when their enemies were
able to triumph over them, when they found themselves in the
midst of great sufferings. It was as the shadow of death. And of course, all these things
that we have in the Old Testament, they're written for our learning,
that we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might
have hope. Through patience, endurance, endurance. Neither
shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved. We find
that in the Scriptures to comfort us. But what are the foes of
the spiritual Israel? In the Old Testament, of course,
Israel, ethnic Israel, is a typical people, and they're often involved
in terrible conflicts with all their enemies round about them.
The Canaanites, ever in the land, they're always being troubled.
But they are a type of God's spiritual Israel. And the believer
then, as a conflict with his foes, are not physical foes. The shadow of death to us is
to be understood surely in terms of spiritual opposition. And
we have it in the world, the world we're living in, the world
that lies in wickedness. The Lord Jesus is in the world.
You shall have tribulation within the world. What are we going
to find in this world? We're going to have trials, troubles,
difficulties. We're not of the world. If we
were of the world, the world would love us and receive us,
but we're not of the world if we're the people of God. Love
not the world, says John, neither the things that are in the world.
All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust
of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but
is of the world. And the world is passing away,
and the lusts, they're off. all the things that we see are
just temporal things the unseen things are the eternal things
and that's where we have to set our affections on those things
that are above we are not to be conformed to this world but
transformed by the renewing of our mind as we understand what
the will of the Lord is this is a believer's experience and
he knows therefore in this world something of what it is to walk
through the valley of the shadow of death It's a world that's
so much opposed to him. It's a world full of tribulations
and trials. But there's not only the world
to contend with, there's Satan, the great adversary. Be sober,
be vigilant, says Peter, because you're adversary the devil walketh
about, seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist, he says, steadfast
in the faith. And we have to resist that awful
foe, that cunning foe. But then we
have that other promise in Romans, at the end of Romans, the God
of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. But he is
a defeated foe. He's a defeated foe. and yet
he's a terrible fellow. He tempts, before he accuses. He's the accuser of the brethren,
accusing them day and night before God. There's a conflict. And
sometimes when Satan seems to be getting the advantage, well
then it's the valley of the shadow of death. Remember how in Pilgrim's
Progress there's that awful conflict between Christian and Apollyon.
or the conflict with Satan. Only the Lord Jesus could say,
the Prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me. There
was nothing in Christ in that sinless human nature that he
could take any advantage of. But there's much in us, so much
of that all nature, and he gains the advantage. And it's an awful
place to be when it seems that Satan has us in his grip. but
then there's not only the world and Satan there is that problem
with ourselves indwelling sin how the flesh lost it against
the spirit and the spirit against the flesh says Paul and you cannot
do the thing that you would we can't we can't do what we would
when we would do good Paul says evil is present how awful it
is The believer's way then is a dark way, a difficult way.
But that's the way of the people of God. Beloved, think it not
strange concerning the fiery trial that is to try you, as
though some strange thing happened unto you. It says Peter in his
first epistle there in chapter 4, and he goes on, Rejoice in
as much as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings, that when
his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad with exceeding
joy. Or the Lord says, doesn't he,
in the world tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome
the world. So whilst there is the believer's
conflict, when he's in the valley, in the valley of the shadow of
death, there is conflict, yet There's also the believer's deliverance. Be of good cheer, I have overcome
the world. But how does the believer come
to that deliverance? It is by crying to God, by calling
upon God, by his prayers. God answers prayer but how necessary
at times it is that God brings us into the place of trial to
make us really pray. I read that passage in the 107th
Psalm and observe what we have there in verses 10 through 14. And look at what we read both
at the end of the passage, verse 10, and then the end of the passage,
verse 14. He speaks here, does the psalmist, verse 10, such
as sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound
in affliction and iron, because they rebelled against the words
of God and condemned the counsel of the Most High. Therefore He
brought down their heart with labor. They fell down, and there
was none to help. Then they cried unto the Lord
in their trouble, and he saved them out of their distresses.
He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and
break their bands in sunder. And that's quite a remarkable
passage because here we see how the believer, when he's brought
into this experience, when he's in this terrible place, the valley
of the shadow of death, it's God dealing with him because
of his sin, God bringing him down, God teaching him, God instructing
him. And what is it that God is doing? He's bringing him to that place
where he has to cry. Then they cried unto the Lord
in their trouble, it says. And he saved them out of their
distresses. He brought them out of darkness
and the shadow of death, and break their bands in sunder,
or that men would praise the Lord for His goodness and for
His wonderful works to the children of men. Is it not a wonder that
God is pleased to go to such lengths in order to bring us
to that place where we have to pray to Him, we have to cry,
we have to call, where else can we go? Wasn't this David's experience
then? 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 well the Lord be pleased
to bless this word to us tonight for his namesake Amen let us
worship God further as we sing the hymn 960 The tune is Walton 413. By faith
in Christ I walk with God. With heaven my journey's end
in view. Supported by his staff and rod, my road is safe and
pleasant too. I travel through a desert wide
where many round me blindly stray. But he vouchsafes to be my guide
and will not let me miss my way. and 60 June 430.