Psalm chapter 23. And we'll be looking at just the
first verse this morning. Psalm chapter 23. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall
not want. Now, when I announced my text,
I'm sure that every one of you in your mind began to rehearse
this blessed psalm. I'm sure that every one of you
know this psalm from memory. This is a psalm that we teach
our children. It's a psalm that's readily rememberable. It's easy to remember. And I'm
sure that when you heard that, I was going to Psalm 23 that you had every word of this
in your heart. And I'm sure this morning as
I preach this message to you that there is nothing new I'm
going to teach you. There's nothing new I'm going
to teach you that you don't already know or that you already have
heard. But I also know this that the
gospel of Jesus Christ never changes. It never changes. The message I preached to you
the last time we were together is the same message I'll preach
to you today. It's a message that's ever new
to us, but it is the same old message. It is an ancient message. It is a message of the gospel
of God's grace that was from eternity. You see, Jesus Christ being the
sum and subject of the gospel, He is the same yesterday, today,
and forever. So, as I preach this message
to you, I preach the same things to you, it is not grievous. It's
not grievous for me to preach the same things to you. It's
safe. Isn't that right? If you hear
something new, you should run. You should run. You should never
come here again if I preach some new gospel, because this is the
old gospel. So then for me to preach these
same things is not grievous as Peter said, but safe. And as
we are enabled by the Holy Spirit this morning, let us rejoice
in the old paths. Isn't that enjoyable when you're
going down a road that you know? It's very discomforting to go
down a road you don't know. We were traveling this week,
and we were going down some roads that we did not know. And I'll
tell you, it's nerve-wracking. You don't know if you're going
the right road. But I'll tell you the gospel.
We are always on this trodden path. In Jeremiah, God says you
should prefer the old paths. The old paths. And as we tread
this morning on the old path, I pray that God, by His grace,
would show us the surety and steadfastness of His sovereign
purpose and power to keep us and to save us from all our sins
and bring us to Himself. Let us by this truth see that
the Lord declares by the prophet David The Lord is my shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd. God declares himself to be as
a shepherd. Now, this implies to us that
God must, of necessity then, have a fold. Is that not right? If someone is a shepherd without
sheep, he is no shepherd. A shepherd of necessity must
have sheep in order to be a shepherd. Is that not so? Would you call
somebody who had cows a shepherd? No, he's not a shepherd of cows. You don't find shepherds of goats.
You don't find shepherds of pigs. You find shepherds of sheep. Of sheep. The Lord is my shepherd. So David then is confessing that
he was the sheep and the Lord was his shepherd. I want to make
this as plain as I can. I want everyone to understand
that there are only two types of people in this world. Only
two types. Goats and sheep. That's it. Goats and sheep. The Scripture
represents all men as goats, either goats or sheep. You remember the Lord Jesus Christ
when He had pronounced that there is coming a judgment day. And
on that day, on that final day, the Lord Jesus Christ will separate
all nations of people. And He will divide them on His
right hand and on His left. The left hand, on His left hand,
will be the goats. and on his right hand will be
his sheep. You see, all people, this morning
you are one of two kinds of people. You are either a sheep or a goat.
You are either a sheep or a goat. Now then, the goats are those
who are lost, those who are not believers of the Lord Jesus Christ. These people are those that hate
the gospel of Jesus Christ. These are people who kick against
the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I tell you, they are goats
not because they kick. They are goats because they are
hated of God. Do you get that? Goats are hated
of God. People are not goats because
they hate God. They are goats because God hates
them. Do you get that? They're goats because God hates
them. These people are hated of God. They are those who are raised
up to accomplish the will of God and to show the power of
God which were before ordained unto
condemnation. I'll make sure I'm clear. Goats
are hated of God and they are they are ordained, listen to
me, ordained unto hell. I'll show it to you. Go to Jude. Go to Jude. Jude, speaking of these goats,
speaking of these who hate the gospel of God's grace and try
to mix grace and works together, he says in Jude verse 4, For
there are certain men, crept in unawares, who were before
of old ordained To this condemnation, ungodly men turning the grace
of God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God and
our Lord Jesus. He calls them filthy dreamers
in verse 8. Defile the flesh, despise dominion. Isn't that so about goats? They
despise dominion. They hate authority. They despise
authority. You ever try to pet goats? They're
just the most obnoxious creatures. They despise dominion and authority. They kick at it. God hated them from before the
foundation of the world. Look at this in Romans chapter
9 and see if it isn't so. In Romans chapter 9, we have
two people here that are goats mentioned. In Romans chapter
9, it says in verse 11, For the children, these are Jacob and
Esau, not yet being born, neither having done good or evil, that
the purpose of God according to election might stand, not
of works. But of him that calleth, it is
said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger as it is written,
Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we say
then? Is there unrighteousness with
God? Let me ask you. This is what He's saying. You're
going to say to me, that's not fair. You're going to say to
me, that's not right. How can God choose one to love
and hate the other? Is there unrighteousness with
God to do that? Absolutely not, God forbid. God can do with you
as He pleases. And I'll tell you this, He will
do with you as He pleases. That's just so. You can kick
at it all you want to, that's just so. He will do with you
as he pleases. He is God and you are not. For he saith to Moses, I will
have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion
on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that
willeth, nor him that runneth, but God that showeth mercy. For
the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have
I raised you up, that I might show my power in thee, and that
my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath
He mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will, He hardened."
Listen to me, if you go away hardened, I know this, God hardened
your heart. Because He hates you, and because He's ordained you
unto condemnation. Isn't that what the scripture
tells us? That God raised up Pharaoh for one purpose, to throw
him down. Hath not the potter power over
the clay to make one vessel unto honor and another to dishonor? Goats are pictured by Esau, who
was eternally hated of God, and Pharaoh, who was raised up only
for destruction. Jesus reveals to us this truth
when He spake to those Pharisees. You remember, He told them He
was the Good Shepherd. He told them He had sheep. And
they didn't believe Him. And He said this to them in John
chapter 10 and verse 26. He said, You believe not because... This is the reason that you will
not believe. Because you are not of My sheep. Do you yet feel powerless? You
should, because you are. God never turns goats into sheep. You do not become a sheep. You
either are or you aren't. God has a sheep. He has a fold. And those who
are not of His fold are goats. And they will be cast out. All of you who will not believe
on Christ, it is because you are not of His sheep. No man
is made a sheep by faith. But everyone who believes on
the Lord Jesus Christ is made to know He is a sheep. When faith came, when God saved
me, when God revealed Himself to me, when God found me, He
revealed to me that I always was His sheep. I was a lost sheep,
but I was His sheep. And He was always my shepherd. He was always my shepherd. The sheep of Christ are His elect,
are the elect of the Father. The sheep are His by election,
by choice. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Praised be to God our Father,
who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ, according as He had chosen us in Him before
the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without
blame before Him, in love having predestinated us unto the adoption
of children by Jesus Christ unto Himself. See then that all of the elect
are blessed with all the blessings of God. You who believe, listen
to me, you are blessed because God hath chosen you and given
you all spiritual blessings. All spiritual blessings. Did I mention all spiritual blessings
are yours? I tell you that because God tells
you that. You who are His sheep, you may
praise your God, for He is your Shepherd. He has always been
your Shepherd. And He has blessed you with all
blessings by giving you to Christ. He has chosen you and given you
to His Son, who is the Good Shepherd. And I tell you, it was for the
sheep that Jesus Christ came into this world to save. It was only for the sheep. Do you get this? That this love
of God is very particular. It's peculiar. It belongs only
to the sheep. And the Father gave the sheep
to Christ. And Jesus Christ, out of love
for His sheep, came into this world and laid down His life
for who? For the sheep. Do you get that? He didn't lay down His life for
the goats. He laid down His life for the sheep. He laid down His
life for the sheep. Jesus said, I am the Good Shepherd,
and know My sheep, and am known of Mine. As the
Father knoweth Me, even so know I the Father, and I lay down
My life for who? The sheep. Oh, the lie of false
religion that presumes upon the death of the Lord Jesus Christ
to be for all men without exception. What a lie! That is a lie! Those who believe it twist, rest
the scriptures to their own destruction and deceive millions upon millions.
Jesus came into this world and was made flesh to fulfill the
law, to fulfill all righteousness and satisfy the justice of God
for the sheep. For those sheep He knows to be
His own. In His high priestly prayer in
John chapter 17, the Lord makes this very clear who He's praying
for. He doesn't make any leave us to guess, does he? He doesn't
leave us to guess who he was the high priest for. He said,
Father, the hour has come. Glorify thy son, that thy son
may also glorify thee, as thou hast given him power over all
flesh, that he should give eternal life. To who? To as many as thou
hast given him. How many are going to believe
and have eternal life? As many as are His sheep. And this is eternal life, that
they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom
Thou hast sent. In verse 9 he says, I pray for
them. For who? Those Thou hast given
me. I pray for my sheep. I pray not
for the world, but for them which thou hast given me, for they
are thine, and all mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am
glorified in them. That's who he prayed for. The Lord is my shepherd, and
I, I am His. I was given to Him. He came into this world and He
died for me. Jesus came into this world to
fulfill all righteousness for His sheep. Behold the Good Shepherd
who came and gave His life for the sheep. I tell you, we who
are His sheep were by nature like everyone else. By nature
we were born sinners. By nature we could no means please
God or obey the law and by nature we did not desire to. Isaiah tells us this, we all
like sheep have gone astray, turned everyone to his own way. We who were born in sin, conceived
in iniquity, came forth from the womb, speaking lies. Our
carnal minds are at enmity against God, for they're not subject
to the law of God, neither indeed can be. God's sheep are by nature
no different than the goats. We were sheep by election and
sheep by purchase, but I tell you, we were lost. We were lost. Yet, at the appointed time of
grace, we heard His voice. You know, one thing is peculiar
about sheep. When they have a shepherd, they
only hear the shepherd's voice. They will not follow another. And I tell you, only His sheep
will hear His voice. They'll hear His voice. At the
appointed time of grace, we heard His voice, the voice of the shepherd. Jesus said, My sheep, no, My
sheep hear My voice, and they follow Me. Now every one of you
are hearing this, are you not? I know that we have in this room
no one that's really physically deaf. I know that you hear this
Word. But do you hear your Savior through
this Word? This is how men are saved. This is how the shepherd calls
his sheep through the voice of his gospel. through the preaching
of His gospel. The same message I have preached
to you that Jesus is the Christ has come to save His people from
their sins. Now who are His people? They're
sinners. Who are His sheep? They're sinners. No good, vile, filthy sinners
with no hope of self-righteousness or self-salvation. That's who
sheep are. You identify with that? You are
if you're a sheep. You know that. You remember the
law of the leper? Law of the leper in Exodus 13.
That leper, if he was covered from head to toe with leprosy,
He would go to the high priest and the high priest would inspect
him and he would look over his body and he would try to find
one piece of flesh. If there was one good piece of
flesh left, he was unclean. But, if his whole body was covered
in leprosy and no flesh visible, no good flesh, you know what
the priest did? He was to declare him to be clean. You see? If you have still some
goodness in you, if you have some goodness left in you, if
you've got some good flesh left in you, you're lost and you're
unclean. But God's sheep understand this,
we have no good flesh. In my flesh dwelleth no good
thing. Every sheep identifies with that.
You know what would happen to that leper if he did someday
come and he found one little patch of skin that was good?
You know what would happen? He would be declared unclean.
He would be unclean again. You see, the sheep never change
their opinion of this. They never change because their
flesh never changes. When I was saved, my flesh didn't
change. It's still just as vile and just as wicked as it always
was. The only difference now is I
have a new nature. I have a new heart. Who are His people? They're sinners.
And it's only sinners who have no good flesh that will come
to Christ. You see, you don't need a Savior if you've got something
good, do you? If you've got something good,
you'll never come to Christ. But those who have nothing good,
hear His voice and they come. They come to Him. It is these who hear the voice
of the shepherd who believe on Christ. We find in Christ, find
in Christ poor sinners, you're all in all, believe on Him alone
and have no confidence in the flesh. This is what sheep do.
They believe on the shepherd. And they follow Him. How do you
know if the Lord is your shepherd? I told you there are only goats
and sheep. How do you know what you are? Have you heard His voice? Have you been risen from the
dead? I'll tell you what, I didn't
know much. I thought I knew everything before I was saved, but when
the Lord actually found me and saved me, I realized I didn't
know anything. And I'm still learning, I know less. And the
more I grow in grace, the less I really know. But I know this,
I know this, that either the world changed
or I changed, but something changed. When he gave me life, there was
life. Have you believed on the Son
of God? Do you follow Him by faith? Is all your affection
set on Christ? Is all your hope of eternal life,
joy, and peace bound up in the person and work of Jesus Christ
alone? If so, you are His sheep. You
are. Yes, believer, you are His sheep
and He is your shepherd. Now then, I want us to see one
thing, one thing as a result of this. If you are His sheep,
He chose you, He redeemed you, and now then notice this. The
Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Wait a second. I seem to want
a lot. I seem to always be in want.
I'm always like, hey, I need, I need, give me, give me, give
me, I need, I need. That's not what it means, covetous.
We all have covetousness in the old man. But the believer shall
not lack. That's what it means. I shall
not lack anything. Anything. Believer in Christ,
you and I understand that we have a warfare. There is a constant
warfare in every one of God's sheep. It's a warfare between
the old nature and the new. The old man and the new man. The flesh lusteth against the
Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary
one to another, so that you cannot do what you would. What would
the new man do? The new man would live without
sin. What would the old man do? He
would live without holiness. And so you have a constant warfare
inside of you, constantly, duly, against one another. Believer, what would you do?
You would live without sin, but the flesh would live in lust
and fulfilling its desires. What constrains you? You who
are His sheep, what constrains you and keeps you? Is it not
the love of Christ? The love of Christ constraineth
us. Not your love for Him, His love
for you. Your love for Him doesn't constrain
you, does it? No. His love for you constrains
you. His love for you. Yet despite all of our failings
and frustration and all of our confusion, because Christ is
your shepherd, you shall not lack anything. You shall not
lack for righteousness. You will not lack any righteousness. For Jesus Christ is all your
righteousness. When He came into this world
to fulfill the law, He did it perfectly. And don't you realize
this, that you did it in Him. You have all righteousness. You
lack none of it. The Scripture says in 1 John
1 verse 4, as He is, so are we in this present world. Second of all, we do not ever
lack justification. We are justified from all our
sin. The sheep of the shepherd are
justified from all our sins, by which we could not be justified
by the law. The law could not justify us,
the law could not save us, but Jesus Christ has justified you. He has paid all your sins. We, like sheep, have all gone
astray, turned everyone to his own way, But the Lord hath laid
on Him the iniquity of us all. Behold, you sheep, behold your
Shepherd, Jesus Christ, who has justified you from all your sins. For He was made sin for us. God
made all our sins and iniquities to meet on Him, our Shepherd. And it was in His body that God
poured out all His vengeance. It pleased the Lord to bruise
Him. When did you please God? You
pleased God when He pleased God. Do you suppose you'll ever please
God by your doing? You won't. You won't. Therefore,
you are complete in Him. You are made qualified to be
partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. So then,
believer, if the Lord is your shepherd, what are you lacking? What are you missing? Not a thing. This whole thing is contingent
upon this. Is the Lord your shepherd? Are
you his sheep? Only those who believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ know they are His sheep. And if you continue
in your sins, you'll only find out in the end you're a goat
and not a sheep. I'm so thankful God has revealed
this to me, that He chose me, He redeemed me, He called me,
He saved me, and He keeps me. What do I lack? Nothing. He is my shepherd, and I am his. May God bless this
to your hearts.