All right, Psalm 23. Psalm 23
is perhaps the most recognizable text of scripture in all the
word of God. If you have ever watched TV,
one of these, I'll call them Christian shows where they try
to introduce God into the subject, even non-Christian shows that
will at least acknowledge God. If there's ever a funeral, you
will hear Psalm 23 read at that funeral. Most of the times I've
heard it read publicly, it's been at a funeral. And that's
interesting to me, that men and women would want to have this
psalm read at their funeral. I myself have read it at a funeral,
and so I know that people love, they find this psalm very dear,
and they want to take the words of this psalm as promises of
God's presence with them and his care over them. And so we
want to look at this, though, in the light of Scripture. It's
easy to get sentimental about Scripture. It's easy to apply
it in a way that it is not warranted, is not justified. But we want
to see how it's justified, how God himself gives us warrant
to take these words for our comfort. And on that note, I want to say
this about the gospel. In Isaiah chapter 40, I'll reference
this, I won't have you turn to it, but in Isaiah chapter 40
and verse 1 and 2, these words are written by the Spirit of
God. It says, Comfort ye, comfort
ye my people, saith your God, speak comfortably to Jerusalem,
that's another name for the Church of Christ, speak comfortably
to Jerusalem and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished,
that her iniquity is pardoned, for she has received at the Lord's
hand double for all her sins. Notice how in this promise of
God, he's telling us, God himself is telling us that his people
have received from his hand double for their sins. And their iniquity
is pardoned. And therefore the preacher is
told to comfort God's people, Jerusalem. And so that leads
me to bring this point to your attention that I know that you
find to be true in your experience as you listen to the gospel,
as you listen to God's word expounded. It's been my experience, and
I'm sure that if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, that
it's been your experience also, that only when the gospel is
preached am I truly comforted. And also, I would say this, that
when we hear a message that causes us, brings anything upon us that
doesn't ultimately lead to our comfort, for what God has done
in Christ, then we have to conclude it was not the gospel message. God's word comforts his people. Jerusalem, God has commanded,
is to be comforted. Because Jerusalem has received
double for all her sins, her warfare has been accomplished. God himself has gained the victory
through our captain, the Lord Jesus Christ, and he actually
is not just the captain of his people, but he is their shepherd.
And that's what we want to look at here in Psalm 23. Now, Psalm
23 it's not a surprise to you, is
right between Psalm 22 and Psalm 24. Psalm 22, as we saw the last
few Bible studies, is about the sufferings of the Lord Jesus
Christ and his victory in those sufferings for the salvation
of his people, that he would declare God's name to his people,
his congregation, because he would suffer and he would be
accepted by God the Father in our place for us, for our blessing,
that we would be the generation that would serve him by God's
grace because he had suffered for his people. That's Psalm
22. Psalm 24 is about the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, the
King of glory. Open the gates, it says in Psalm
24. Who shall ascend into the hill
of the Lord or who shall stand in his holy place? and is talking
about the Lord Jesus Christ. Who is the King of Glory? That's
the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the King of Glory. Open
the gates, let Him in. He's accomplished our salvation.
Psalm 22, the sufferings of Christ. Psalm 24, the ascension of Christ,
the victor over our enemies. Our sins, the warfare is accomplished. Jerusalem is to be comforted.
Psalm 23 is the comfort of God for his people. It's about the
shepherd. He says in Psalm 23, the Lord
is my shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd. Jehovah
is my shepherd. I shall not want. I shall not
want. That's the promise of this. And
the next verse, let's just read through it. He makes me to lie
down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still
waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth
me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. 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 a table before
me in the presence of mine 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." Now, this psalm opens up with these
words, the Lord. The Lord is my shepherd. If you were to go to the New
Testament in 1 Peter chapter 5, you would find there that
Peter, the apostle Peter, gives this instruction to those who
are preachers over God's flock. The pastors, he calls them. In
1 Peter 5, in verse 1, it says, the elders which are among you
I exhort. Now an elder and a pastor, a
bishop, these are synonyms in scripture for those who lead
God's people to feed them with the gospel. And that's what they
are. In the Old Testament, it says,
I will give you pastors. Here, he calls them elders. In
other places, he calls them bishops. But it's all a synonym for the
same thing. Don't get wrapped around the
axle of trying to find some distinguishing characteristics between these
men who teach the word of God to the people of God in the church
of God are filling the role of a pastor, an elder, a bishop. And so that's what he's talking
about. Notice though, 1 Peter 5, the elders which are among
you I exhort who am also an elder and a witness of the sufferings
of Christ. You see what he's talking about
here? Peter is saying, I am a witness of the sufferings of Christ.
We know what that is. It's his sin atoning work. and also a
partaker of the glory that shall be revealed." Yet to be revealed,
Christ is going to appear in glory. Verse 2, this is what
they're supposed to do, the pastors, and notice he says this as a
shepherd. He says, the flock of God, which
is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but
willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind." Not because
we're trying to get money, but because we want to feed God's
sheep. We want to honor the shepherd.
So he says, neither as being lords over God's heritage, but
being in samples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd shall
appear, you shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.
All right. In this text of scripture, God
is identifying the Lord Jesus Christ as the chief shepherd. But he's also showing that men
fill the role of under shepherds. And how do they fill that role?
By feeding the flock of God. And what are they going to feed
them with? Well, they're going to feed them with whatever the
shepherd would feed them with, which is the gospel of his saving
grace, the sufferings of Christ, the glory that shall follow.
That's what he says in 1 Peter 5. So when we look back at Psalm
23, the Lord is my pastor. He's the one who feeds me with
the meat from heaven, the meat and drink of heaven. OK, so the
Lord is my shepherd. And so we see this. The word
Lord here is really the word Jehovah. Now, in the Old Testament,
there are eight different I would call them appendages to the name
Jehovah that help explain to us what it means, who the Lord
is. Because remember, in Scripture,
the name of a person or a place identifies not just a handle
by which you refer to them to distinguish them from other people,
But it also indicates who they are in their character. It's
a character name. So it identifies what they're
like. And so when the Lord gives us
different names of himself, when he attaches these appendages
to Jehovah, then he's describing himself, his character. Now,
in this psalm, he says, the Lord, Jehovah, is my shepherd. Now
the word shepherd is pronounced something like, not exactly like,
R-A-H. And I'm sure I'm not getting
it right. But so what you see here is that Jehovah, R-A, is
a way for God to identify himself in his character. in not only
his character in his nature, but in his relation to his people. And so we see this in scripture.
God's name indicates not only who he is in his nature and character,
but in his relation to his people. In fact, what we find is that
in God's nature and character, he's revealing all that he is,
and all that he is as God, he is for his people. He himself, in his nature and
character, in the fullness of himself as God, is all that his
people need and all that he gives to them. He gives himself to
them. So, let's go through this list
here now when we're looking at Psalm 23, because in this psalm,
what we see is that the attachments God makes to the name Jehovah
are actually described in this psalm. And the first one we see
here is the Lord is my shepherd, which is Jehovah-rah-ah, okay? So Jehovah-rah-ah, it has to
do with him being my shepherd. Let's look at the next one here.
He says, I shall not want. I won't lack anything. Now, when
we think about this lacking of things, we all have things we
want and desire, and we think we have to have them, but we
don't have them, obviously. We might think we need to be
able to, let's say, pay all of our bills, and yet we have bills
to pay, and we never get to the top of it. We never get out of
that debt. What does that mean? Does that
mean God is not our shepherd because we have this lack of
not being able to pay our bills or something like that in a physical
sense? Well, no, it can't mean that
because even in Hebrews 11, let me read this to you from Hebrews
11 in verse 13. It says, these all died in faith,
not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off
and were persuaded of them. They saw and they were persuaded
of what God said to be true. God made it clear to them in
their understanding. They saw it and they were convinced. God persuaded them, this is the
way things are, the promises of God. They saw them afar off. They were persuaded of them and
they embraced them. They gladly trusted in God and
what he said he would do, just like we do, just as they did. That's what we do. We trust that
God will receive us for Christ's sake. He has forgiven us. What? Why? For Christ's sake. Hasn't
he? He's forgiven you all of your
sins for Christ's sake. He has justified us because he
delivered up his son for us. He was delivered for our offenses,
our sins, but he was raised again for our justification. That's a promise of God. That's
a truth God has revealed in the scripture. I've seen it. I'm
persuaded that this is the way things are. And I gladly embrace
Christ, who is my righteousness. Let's go on in Hebrews 11 verse
13. So they saw them afar off. They
were persuaded of them. This isn't really a definition
of faith. They embraced them. That means they laid hold on
them. They trusted in God. They considered them their necessary
blessings from God. They had to have it. And they
welcomed it as being something God gave them out of pure grace.
for Christ's sake," next phrase, and they confessed that they
were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. God had promised them,
and yet they had nothing of what God promised in the physical
reality of it. What did they have instead? They
had faith and faith is the substance of things hoped for. We don't
have the fulfillment of the promises in our experience, but we do
have the experience of faith, which makes the fulfillment as
real to us as if we had the real thing. And so he goes on. For
they that say such things that they were strangers and pilgrims
on the earth, meaning I have nothing on this earth. What do
I have? I have God's promises. God has
said it. I'm persuaded that he is able
and will do all that he said. God has persuaded me of this.
I live my life expecting him to fulfill his word. And everything
in this world is strange to me. And I'm a stranger to it. The
world is crucified to me and I to the world through the Lord
Jesus Christ. He goes on in verse 14. They that say such things declare
plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful
of that country from which they came out, they might have had
opportunity to have returned. They weren't thinking about going
back to works religion, were they? They had no desire to do
that. They were looking for a salvation
that depended on Christ and was given to them out of God's pure
grace alone, fulfilled in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and everything connected to the blessings of that salvation,
life, eternal life, the Spirit of God in us. and the redemption
of our body, to be with Christ in glory, to see him as he is
and to know him intimately, all those things wrapped up in the
promises of God, they looked for that. And so they didn't
have an opportunity to return because they had no interest
in returning. to those old and beggarly things of the world.
It goes on in verse 16 of Hebrews 11, Hebrews 11, 16. But now they
desire a better country. That is a heavenly. See, it's
not this world. It's a heavenly one. Wherefore,
God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared
for them a city. And what is that city? But the
New Jerusalem. The building of God, where God
dwells, the stones of which are the people of God, the body of
which is the body of Christ. Christ himself dwells with his
people. That glorious city described in Revelation as the consummate
end for which God created the world and all of history. The
purpose of God is in the fulfillment and gathering his people together
and assembling them as his dwelling place, his people, his body,
members of his bones and of his flesh, the Lord Jesus Christ,
in great love. And so we see that here in Hebrews
11. But then I wanna read on in verse 36 of Hebrews chapter
11. He says, and others, when he
describes all the victories of these people of faith through
faith, what they did like Gideon and David and so on, others,
he said, they had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings Moreover,
of bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn
asunder, they were tempted, they were slain with a sword, they
wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being, notice,
destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy.
They wandered in deserts and in mountains and in dens and
caves of the earth, and these all having obtained a good report
through faith, Not through works, but through faith, meaning it
had to be by grace. They received not the promise,
God having provided some better thing for us, that they without
us should not be made perfect. Now, lay that over the Lord is
my shepherd, I shall not want. And what conclusion must we draw
but that the want spoken of here doesn't have to do with our physical
earthly experience in this life? not in a physical sense, not
the goods of this life, not even the health that we have in our
bodies, although those things are blessings given to us by
God of His good pleasure, of His providence, but they're the
spiritual blessings in the Lord Jesus Christ. The one who is
our shepherd is the shepherd of our souls. In 1 Peter chapter
two, it words it that way. Let me read that verse of scripture
to you. 1 Peter and chapter two and verse
25. Let me turn there quickly. He says, 1 Peter chapter 2 and
verse 25, he says, you were a sheep going astray, but are now returned
unto, notice, the shepherd and bishop of your souls. So the blessings of God that
the shepherd provides to his sheep are heavenly blessings
and spiritual blessings. And we know from Ephesians 1,
chapter 1, verse 3, that God the Father has given to us all
spiritual and heavenly blessings that are in Christ Jesus. Everything
God has for his people, he's given to them in the Lord Jesus
Christ, their shepherd. And so, the Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want, it fulfills that name of God, which is what?
Jehovah Jireh, the Lord will provide. So, here we're seeing
now, the one who identified himself to Abraham as Jehovah Jireh,
when Isaac asked my father, here's the sacrifice, I mean, here's
the wood, I'm sorry, the wood and the fire, but where's the
sacrifice for the offering? And Abraham said to Isaac, he
said, my son, God will provide himself a lamb. In other words,
and he called the place later on in Genesis 22, 14, Jehovah
Jireh, God will see, he'll see to it. And in seeing to it, he
will accept what he provides and he will be seen in what he
provides because his name is Jehovah Jireh, the Lord will
provide. Therefore, we will not want We
will not want any good thing because our God is our shepherd,
the Lord Jesus Christ, who came in our nature and fulfilled all
that Psalm 22 describes, and therefore we have all things
in Christ given to us because it's the Lord Jesus Christ who
is our shepherd. In Psalm 34 and verse 10 it says,
the young lions do lack and suffer hunger, but notice, but they
that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing. And so when you put these things
together from Hebrews 11 that we just read about and here in
Psalm 34 verse 10 and then in Psalm 23 here, If the Lord is
our shepherd, Jehovah-Jireh, the one who provides, and he
provided himself a lamb, then nothing will be withheld from
us. Isn't that what he says in Romans 8, verse 32? He who delivered
up his own son and did not spare his own son for us, how shall
he not with him also freely give us all things? With him? He's going to give us everything
that he has for his son. because he gave his son for us. If he gave his son, then he gave
everything with his son. If you had $100 in your pocket
and you gave yourself to your wife, she gets the $100 too. She gets you and all that you
have. You don't get to say, I have a bank account here. Honey, I
want you to be my wife, but my bank account's off limits. No.
If you give yourself, you've given everything. The Lord Jesus
Christ gave himself. God gave his son. He gave everything
with his son to his people. He did not spare his son. He
delivered him up to death and to sufferings for us. Therefore,
he will give us all that he gives his son because he gave him for
us. And that's what it's talking about here, the Lord, the Lord
who is Jehovah Jireh, the provider, the one who sees our needs and
fulfills them. And in that fulfillment of our
needs in the Lord Jesus Christ, we see and know our God. And
we walk by faith in this world, not looking for an inheritance
here, but in a heavenly inheritance, a spiritual blessing. Think about
what God has said to us. What do we have in the Lord Jesus
Christ? Hasn't he said? that we have
all things in Him. God has given everything to the
Lord Jesus Christ. He's made Him the heir of all
things. He put all things into His hand, and now we're given
all things in Him. We have everything that He has.
1 Corinthians 3, He says it this way, in 1 Corinthians 3, verse
21, Let no man glory in men, for all things are yours, whether
Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death,
or things present, or things to come. All are yours. You are
Christ, and Christ is God's. There we are, because we are
the shepherds because we belong to Him, then we have all things. The world, life, death, everything
is ours. The grave, the victory over it
is ours. Everything is given to us. And
we have it not just as a, well, we have it in victory. We are
conquerors, more than conquerors through Him that loved us, okay?
So that's the first one. The second one here is, We see
that we don't want any good thing because the Lord is our shepherd,
but notice in the Psalm, Psalm 23, he says, he makes me to lie
down in green pastures. Imagine the sheep, they're out
in the pasture, it's rich, the grass is lush, and they're all
lying there on the grass as content as they can be because they have
taken their fill of the pasture and they've laid themselves down
absolutely satisfied. What does this picture, this
scene bring to your mind in a spiritual sense? That he makes me to lie
down in green pastures. Well, the first thing we see
here is, as we sung on Sunday, to lie forever here, from the
psalm, the hymn that we sang, to lie forever here in the blessed
assurance in Christ that I am loved with an everlasting love
and blessed with all spiritual and heavenly blessings that we
received because we're in Him, we've received it for His sake
alone, therefore we find all of the blessings God has told
us in Christ to be ours, to be the greatest, most satisfying
things in all the world. To know acceptance with God in
spite of my sin, to know that I don't have to produce anything
that God requires because Christ has provided it all. He's fulfilled
all the requirements for me, and He's made satisfaction for
all that I did in sinning against God, and to know that God is
well-pleased with Him and all who are in Him. Remember Matthew
17 5, this is my beloved Son, in Him I am well-pleased. So
all who are in Him, like we are in Adam, we're well-pleasing
to God because of Him. To have this knowledge is a bliss
and blessedness worth worlds to realize. We're like sheep
laying in a green pasture, utterly content to be found of God in
Christ. We have the abundance of His
grace. because of Christ. We have a
full and free justification because of the redemption that is in
Christ. He shed his blood. God has justified us. We have
no sin. God has said in his court, the
decision of his court, that we are without sin. I see no sin,
no spot in them. God has searched and He found
no iniquity. He sees no spot in His people,
no sin in Israel. All these things throughout Scripture
teach us what justification is. We're sanctified by His blood.
We've been perfected forever by His one offering. We've been
redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. We have the full remission
of our sins because of the blood of Christ. We're made righteous
because He who knew no sin was made sin for us, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in Him. Just stack up every
blessing of God and notice it was all purchased for us at the
cost of Christ's own blood. And therefore we lie down, we're
at rest, we're at perfect peace because of the blood of Christ.
All that we enjoy, we enjoy in the satisfaction of our soul
by faith. We take it into our mouth as
sheep through the mouth, the teeth, the taste of God-given
faith, don't we? And so we see this here. He makes
me lie down in green pastures. Notice the word makes me. Don't
you want the Lord to make you? Don't you want his grace to be
so irresistible and invincible that you will be made to rest
in Christ? You will be brought to the end
of your own silly and futile and filthy works righteousness,
you'll be brought to the end of the shame that your sins have
brought, and you'll be made to see the glory of God in the grace
that is in Christ Jesus, that all of your salvation has been
accomplished by the Lord of glory. and that He did it apart from
any consideration for what you might do, or what you've resolved
to do, or what you said you're sorry for. All those things mean
nothing on the scales of God's justice, Christ alone, and all
the blessings of God purchased by that. offering of himself,
and so we rest in him. He makes me to lie down in this,
and we want it to be so, don't we? We're glad that God's grace
makes Christ irresistible to us, and he does this on a daily
basis, too, because we're frustrated by life, our own inadequacies,
and yet we find in Christ, I have no lack. I have everything that
Christ is. Before God, I have it in him,
and therefore it's mine. And then he says here, not only
that, he makes me to lie down in green pastures, but he leads
me beside the still waters. The still waters are waters of
peace, not tempestuous waters of the Red Sea or the Sea of
Galilee or the sea that Jonah was thrown into. All the waters,
all the floods of God's wrath have been put to silence. They've been quieted. Remember
Jesus on the boat with his disciples? Be still, he speaks to the waves
and the wind, and they were still, because he's the shepherd, he
leads me beside the still waters. The waters of God's wrath, the
flood of his justice against us has been made silent, because
Christ has answered all. And so we have this assurance
from God that Being justified by his grace, we have peace with
God. Justified by the blood, justified
by the grace of God, given faith to see it, we experience and
know this peace with God. We're made to lie down and rest
our souls, our weary souls, in the abundance of God's grace
that's in Christ, that's the green pastures, and he leads
us beside the still waters because everything has been made calm
for God's sheep. Notice the next verse, he restoreth
my soul. Now this word here reminds me
of what it says in Exodus 15 and 26. If you remember, Israel
came out of Egypt and they came across the Red Sea. The first
thing that happened, they came to the water and the water was
bitter, called the waters of Mara. And God told Moses to cut
down a tree and throw it into the bitter waters, and the waters
were made sweet. And they said, they called that
place Jehovah-Rapha. Jehovah-Rapha, which means the
Lord that healeth me. And so when we read these, He
restoreth my soul, think of it that way. God restores us. He renews us. He turns us again. The word here, restore, really
means that. It means to be turned again,
to be brought back. And that's a healing. And so
he restores my soul. And we see this in our own life. When we get sick in our bodies,
we need to be healed. We experience that healing. But
in our souls, we have the same thing. We feel the wound of our
sin in our conscience. We're confused. How could I be
a believer? How could I be a Christian and
do this? How could I do it repeatedly? What's my hope? It seems like
I'm constantly coming to God as a filthy sinner and I have
nothing to bring. I'm always here for salvation
and it's despicable. Guess what? That's never going
to change. You're always going to have a
need that you cannot provide. You're always going to be in
yourself nothing but a sinner before God. And all you have
is what God has done for you in Christ and given to you in
Him. That's the message. So He has
to restore our soul. He has to repeat that lesson
to us in our soul to show us that because Christ was wounded
for our transgressions, therefore we are healed. He himself bore
our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead to sins
might live to God by whose stripes we were healed. The Lord who
restores my soul. Jehovah Rapha. He's the one who
heals me. I'm a sheep if you're one of
God's people. You are a sheep. You're one of
those described by the Spirit of God as a sheep. And what is
a sheep? My daughter who lives in Oregon has recently acquired
some sheep, and it's funny to see them running around. But
this thing I've seen about sheep, I've never been a shepherd, but
I've seen some things about them. Sheep are stupid animals. They
can get themselves into trouble and they repeatedly get themselves
into trouble. The same trouble, I saw this
YouTube video one time where a sheep had gotten itself head
first down a hole in the ground and all you could see were its
feet, its back feet sticking out of the hole and the shepherd
had to pull it out of the hole. How did the sheep be so stupid
as to do that? Guess what? It did it again.
They'll do the dumbest things because they're just dumb sheep.
And also this is another thing you see about sheep is they stray.
They get themselves lost and they don't know how to get back.
Sheep lose themselves on the hills of danger and they can't
get back. The only way for them to return
to the sheepfold is for the shepherd to go out and find them and to
put them on his shoulders and to bring them back. That's what
sheep are like. Stupid, dumb, repeating the same
things over and over again and getting themselves lost. Another
thing that sheep do that are about, you'll notice this about
sheep, is they have no defenses. They can't defend themselves
against wolves or lions or bears. They have to be rescued. Sheep
have to be rescued. And this is what we are, defenseless,
helpless creatures in the mouths of our enemies. And someone has
to rescue us. And they can't feed themselves.
They have to be led to the pastures. They have to be brought to the
waters. They get themselves in all kinds of trouble. There's
many more things that we could say about sheep as animals. But here he says, the Lord is
the one who restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness
for his name's sake. He's the shepherd. He's doing
all this. I'm the dumb, stupid, filthy, defenseless, straying
sheep. And I've gone my own way, but
the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. That's the
way I'm brought back, is by the substitutionary work of Christ.
Not only for me, but brought to me by the Lord Himself. That
green pasture of His grace in His own precious blood. Alright,
so we see this here. You can read about this in Psalm
80. In Psalm 80 it says this, in verse one, give ear, O shepherd
of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock, thou that
dwellest between the cherubims, shine forth before Ephraim and
Benjamin and Manasseh, stir up thy strength and come, and notice,
save us. He says in Psalm 80, verse 3,
turn us again. That's the word here, restore.
He restores my soul. Turn us again, O God, and cause
thy face to shine and we shall be saved. Someone told me one
time that they thought I was smart. felt like that was not
an attribute someone should use to describe me. I feel stupid. Most of the time, I feel really
stupid. But in terms of spiritual things,
I feel utterly ignorant, like a dumb, strained, defenseless,
helpless sheep that gets himself lost and needs to be rescued,
gets myself into things that would ruin me, and the shepherd
has to come rescue me out of it. So he says the way he does
this is he causes his face to shine, he makes himself known.
Listen to the same psalm, Psalm 80, verse 17. Let thy hand be
upon the hand, I'm sorry, let thy hand be upon the man of thy
right hand, upon the son of man whom thou has made strong for
thyself. That's the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you do that, so
will we not turn back from thee, quicken us, make us alive, and
we will call upon thy name. Turn us again, O God of hosts,
Lord God of hosts, cause thy face to shine, and we shall be
saved. That's the prayer of a sheep.
Lord, restore my soul. Turn me again, bring me to yourself,
seek me, find me, carry me back, and you're gonna have to do it
again and again, because this road to glory is this road of
sheep that belong to the shepherd, and that's why we need the shepherd
of our souls to quicken us, to make us alive. Let's go on in
Psalm 23. He says in verse three, he leads me in the paths of righteousness
for his name's sake. Notice it's for his name's sake.
When David prayed in Psalm 51 that God would forgive him for
the sin of murdering Uriah and committing adultery with Bathsheba
and hiding it and pretending like a hypocrite that he was
okay before all the people of Israel, you know what he prayed?
Lord, forgive me according to your mercies, according to your
loving kindness, and do it for your name's sake, for your righteousness'
sake. God does everything for His name's
sake. He forgives us, as I mentioned
before, for Christ's sake. He doesn't look for something
from you. He's not asking for you to come up with a resolution.
or to make a vow, or to reform your life so then you can show
that you're serious and sincere. All those are filthy works righteousness
rags. They're not going to do anything.
They actually keep you from embracing Christ in full trust. You have
to come as a sinner, a dirty, strained, stupid, defenseless,
lost sheep, The same way you came the first time in need of
everything, finding everything you need in the Lord Jesus Christ,
and you come that way again and again and you say, lead me in
the paths of righteousness. And what is that? What is the
path of righteousness? But the righteousness of the
Lord Jesus Christ, isn't it? He says his name is Jehovah Sidkenu,
the Lord, our righteousness. Do we have any other righteousness?
Didn't the psalmist say in Psalm 71, 10, I think it is, or 16,
he says, I will make mention of thy righteousness even of
thine only? The psalmist said that. And didn't
he say in Romans chapter 10 that the Jews, being ignorant of God's
righteousness, went about to establish their own righteousness
by the law, and therefore they would not submit themselves to
the righteousness of God, and Christ himself is the end of
the law for righteousness? That's the path of righteousness.
The path of righteousness is the path that leads me to Christ
by righteousness. And that's all we have. And so
he restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness. And it's all for his namesake.
He brings me back to see that Christ is my all, doesn't he?
And verse four, notice Psalm 23, verse four. 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. Now, what is this shadow, I mean,
this valley of the shadow of death? What is that? Well, in
Romans chapter 8 and verse 10, it says the body is dead because
of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. Well,
if the body is dead because of sin and we live in this body,
then isn't it true that as believers we recognize that this old man
and the body of this flesh is just a constant attendance through
the entire course of our life of faith in a valley of the shadow
of death, isn't it? We're in a valley, we're experiencing
the association of our old man and old nature, our sinful self,
our natural selves, in the presence of our new nature which looks
to Christ only, which finds its all in Christ, which comes up
with no answers, but this answer at the end of the day, when we've
worn ourselves out trying to comfort ourselves in our own
conscience and unconfuse ourselves, we finally come to this conclusion,
God has to find everything in Christ for me. And that's my
whole answer, is what he's done for me in Christ. That's walking
through the valley of the shadow of death. Our old man, our new
man, constantly in the body of this death and yet by faith,
the new man, lives by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We see
that our life is in Christ. Isn't that the experience of
every believer? Unbelievers don't have that experience because
they don't have faith in Christ. And it's only faith in Christ
that causes us to see that the body is dead because of sin and
that we're constantly at war in the old man with the new man.
The spirit lusting against the flesh and the flesh against the
spirit, and you can't do what you want because the two are
contrary to one another. And God is going to give us the
victory through the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what Paul said.
Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God
through Christ Jesus our Lord. And we're more than conquerors
through him that loved us. Christ is going to give us the
victory. It's already obtained. He's gonna
give it to us. And so he says in verse four,
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
fear no evil. Notice verse four, Psalm 23,
for thou art with me. Thou art with me. There's a name
of God in Ezekiel. chapter, let's see, I don't have
it, it's called, well, I don't have the reference, so I'm not
even gonna guess. Ezekiel, it uses this name for God, the Lord
is there, or Jehovah Shammah. And so here we have, I will fear
no evil for thou art with me, it's referring to God's character,
his relation to his people, that he will never leave them. He
will never forsake them. He's always with them. Remember
when Jesus was about to go to the cross, what did he say in
John chapter 14? In my father's house are many
mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. But I
go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place
for you, I'll come again to you and I'll receive you to myself
that where I am, there you may be also. He's never going to
leave us. And then he said in the interim,
I'm going to give you another comforter. I will not leave you
alone. I will come to you. Remember
in John chapter 14? So here he's saying, I will fear
no evil for thou art with me. The Lord Jesus Christ is with
his people. He was with them until he departed
and went to the cross. But he told them, I will come
again. And he did by his spirit. He sent his spirit from heaven.
And then he's going to bring us to himself. He's going to
bring us to those mansions he's preparing, that temple, that
city, that mountain, Zion and Jerusalem he's creating there
for us to dwell in. He's perfecting his people and
at the end of time they're all going to be gathered and they're
going to make one body, one city, one mountain of his dwelling
and God himself is going to reveal himself to us. in our own glorified
bodies, made like Christ's body. But now, in the valley of this
shadow of death, as we live the life we live now, by faith in
Christ, in the body of death, what does He say? Thou art with
me. Jehovah Shammah. Therefore, He says in Hebrews
chapter 13, He has said, I will never leave thee nor forsake
thee. No. Never. I will never leave thee nor forsake
thee. And nothing can separate us from the love of God which
is in Christ Jesus. Not life. Not death. Not the
past. Not the present. Not the future.
Not spiritual principalities. Not principalities of this earth.
Those are the ones we're most familiar with. And not our own
sin. Because God has said, who's going
to lay anything to the charge of God's elect? He has already
justified them. God has. And no one can condemn
because Christ has died, risen again, is seated at the right
hand of God and makes intercession for them. The Lord is there. And so he says it this way. He
says, I will fear no evil for thou art with me in the presence
of my enemies. He says this. Before he gets
to verse five, he says, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
What is a rod? Well, a rod, in a kingly setting,
is the scepter. He says in Hebrews chapter one,
he says, thy scepter is a righteous scepter. You've loved righteousness
and hated iniquity, rule in the presence of your enemies. The
Lord Jesus Christ has a rod or a scepter he rules with, and
that rod, according to Romans chapter eight, is the rod of
strength. With Psalm 110 and Romans chapter
8, that rod of strength is the gospel, the power of God unto
our salvation. So he rules with his sovereign
rule. That's the rod, that's the scepter.
It's a rule, a sovereign rule of righteousness because he accomplished
our salvation according to God's righteousness. God in his sovereignty
was pleased to save us According to His righteousness, Christ
fulfilled that righteousness, now Christ reigns in righteousness.
There's no compromise, no fixing of the books here. It's a salvation
that can withstand the scrutiny of the holiness of God. Our salvation is certain and
sure in the Lord Jesus Christ because it's his rod, his sovereign
rule by his righteousness. And the next thing he says, not
only his rod, but his staff. These comfort me. His staff is
what? Well, the staff of the shepherd
is what brings us back. A staff is something you lean
on. And what is that? That's his salvation, what he's
done for us, his work. So here we see the sovereign
person of the Lord Jesus Christ as our king, and we see the gracious
work, the almighty work, the rod and the staff of the Lord
saving his people. And then he says in verse five,
thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies,
thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runs over. What's he saying
here to the believer? Well, to the believer, what he's
saying here is that in the very presence of your enemies, God
is going to spread a table, a feast. And what is that feast? But the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, isn't that our drink? If any
man eats my flesh and drinks my blood, he dwells in me and
I dwell in him, John 6, 56. So our sustenance, our life,
is to feed upon, by faith, the Lord Jesus Christ crucified for
us, risen again. And God is gonna spread this
table in the presence of our enemies. Remember John 8, the
woman taking an adultery? In the presence of her enemies,
what did Christ do? He stooped down. wrote on the
ground, silenced her accusers because they were guilty, and
then he stooped again, fulfilled God's law in that symbol by stooping
the second time, and he rose up and he said, Woman, where
are your accusers? In the presence of your enemies
I spread this table of his own doing and dying for his people,
this feast upon which their faith lives. And so he says it again
in Romans chapter eight. This, I think, is the clearest
commentary on this verse. God says, who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? Now, at the same time, this table
is spread for the sheep, because this is all their delight. This
is their glory. Oh, that God has saved me by
his grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. And this table is spread for
them, and Christ does what to his enemies? It silences them.
The table is spread in the presence of our enemies and God says he
throws out the gauntlet. He challenges all the onlooking
universe. Who is going to accuse any of
my elect from the foundation of the world and before it until
the end of time? Not one accusation can be laid
against God's elect. Those are the sheep. The elect
and the sheep are just synonyms. God the Father gave the sheep
to Christ and he says, he has given them to me. Therefore they
come to me. They're drawn to me. And he lays
his life down for them. He loved them and gave himself
for them. They're the sheep. No one can lay anything to the
charge of God's elect because God has justified them. How did
he do it? Who can condemn? One for whom
Christ died. Because Christ died, no one can
condemn us. That's a table, isn't it? That's
a feast for the faith of God's people. The sheep, their appetite
is stirred up and their souls are satisfied, feeding on the
Lord Jesus Christ and his sin-atoning death. And God's reception of
that for them. remission of our sins, I remember
them no more, perfected in my sight, sanctified by his blood,
redeemed by the blood of Christ. Propitiation has been made. Sonship
has been established in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. God's
Spirit is sent to us and we know our Sonship by the Spirit of
God. He says it right here. Thou anointest
my head with oil and my cup runs over. The Spirit of God is given
to us because the blood of Christ was shed for us, and Christ sent
His Spirit, the blessing that God promised for His people.
Because Christ redeemed us, Galatians 3, 13-14, God has given us His
Spirit, and we know Him as our God and Father. Finally, the
last verse of Psalm 23, Surely goodness and mercy shall follow
me all the days of my life. I got this from somebody else,
but I think it's such a great picture. Have you ever seen sheep
dogs working a flock of sheep? It's incredible what they do.
They never actually touch the sheep, but they slink around
behind, they go to the left, they slink behind, they go to
the right. They're constantly following the sheep. Sometimes
there's one, sometimes there's two. And what do the sheep do?
They're like, they have this invisible net around them and
they're directed wherever the shepherd leads the flock because
the sheepdogs are behind. And here, what are the sheepdogs?
Goodness and mercy. Surely goodness and mercy shall
follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the
house of the Lord forever. This is amazing, isn't it? I'm
gonna dwell in the Lord's house. That's the mansions Jesus was
talking about in John 14. You're gonna be with the King
of glory. You're gonna be like Mephibosheth with your feet under
the table spread in the blood and righteousness of the Lord
Jesus Christ. all heavenly blessings given to you in Christ. And what
follows? What keeps you? What keeps you
from going astray through this life, going through the valley
of the shadow of death? Since your sins are so strong
and you have no power over them, how are you gonna be kept? goodness
and mercy. God's goodness and God's mercy
are constantly going to be attending your life because you're God's
sheep. They're going to direct you to
and bring you to the shepherd. Amazing. What did I do to deserve
this? Nothing. In fact, you've done
everything to disqualify yourself from this. But the Lord sought,
He missed His sheep, He went out, found it, and brought it
back. He brought back that sheep that was gone astray, and when
He did, He rejoiced, and heaven rejoiced with Him. goodness and
mercy, his goodness towards us in Christ, his mercy towards
us in the propitiation of Christ's blood. All these things are constantly
following behind us, not only to keep us in, but to bless us
with the blessing of the keeping of the shepherd. He feeds us.
A shepherd brings us to the nourishment of our souls, the water of life,
the peace with God we have with him, the abundance of his grace,
the paths of righteousness, our righteousness in the Lord Jesus
Christ, the fact that he's going to save us from the body of this
death because our righteousness is in him and he has given us
the spirit of his life which is by his righteousness. It's
all amazing grace, all expounded to us in the gospel. And that's
the food on which our souls feed. What a great shepherd we have. Other people might say, well,
I get my education from this professor or that book, or I
read this newspaper, or I watch this TV program or this newscaster
or whatever, this iPod thing. Mumbo jumbo, the Lord is my shepherd. How do you know you're one of
God's sheep? How do you know you're one of God's sheep? How
can anyone claim to be the sheep of the Lord Jesus Christ? Well,
he says, my sheep hear my voice. The only distinguishing quality
that sheep have from these other animals, they're filthy, as we
talked about, they're defenseless, they're stupid, they get themselves,
they go astray, they get themselves lost, they can't get back, they
need a savior. What's the one distinguishing
quality? They hear the voice of the shepherd. They hear of
his comfort in the gospel, and they're comforted. They take
great hope and they find this gift of God's faith. They're
persuaded of it. They cling to the Lord Jesus
Christ in trust. They look to Him with delight.
They find the satisfaction of their soul and strength in this
life by trusting Him. Things go bad. Our own behavior,
our own thoughts, our motives, everything we do would Separate
us. We would separate ourselves and
exclude ourselves were it not for the goodness and mercy that's
in the Lord Jesus Christ. God's constantly attending these
things to his people. He's bringing us to it. We find
a light in it. We can't leave it. Where else
are you gonna go? The Lord Jesus Christ has the
words of eternal life. Let's pray. Father, thank you
for the Lord Jesus, our shepherd, the good shepherd, the great
shepherd, of the sheep, the chief shepherd, the one whose blood
made the everlasting covenant. and He has given us all things
because He did all things for us. We were not poking our heads
up higher than others and attracting the attention of God. We were
in the dust, on the dunghill. The Lord Jesus Christ, by your
electing grace, according to His great love for us, has lifted
us from the dunghill and set us among princes. We deserve
nothing but God's wrath. We have no righteousness to trust.
We have no wisdom to trust. Christ must be our wisdom and
righteousness. He must be our holiness. He must
be everything for us, and ultimately redeem us, not only by His blood,
but by His coming again, change our bodies to be like His glorious
body. And we pray, Lord, that in the
experience of our life, in this body of flesh that we have now,
that's a body of death, that you would teach us that by the
Lord Jesus Christ, we are more than conquerors through Him that
loved us, And we want to give all praise and find all of our
life in the Lord Jesus, our shepherd. In his name we pray, amen.