OK, turn in your Bibles with
me to Psalm 23. Psalm 23. Does he know this by
heart? It was. I'm going to go ahead
and start get us out of here. It was said of our Lord. And
when he saw the multitude, He was moved with compassion on
them because they fainted. That means they were tired or
they would lay down. They fainted and were scattered
abroad as sheep having no shepherd. He had compassion on them. And Bob just prayed that we might
have the mind of Christ. I wish I had. the mind of Christ
in this regard, in this area, had compassion on people, to
have his tenderness and his long-suffering and his kindness and his patience
and his forbearance and his forgiving spirit. I wish I had that, his
understanding and pity for people. I wish I had that. Preachers
are guilty of a great error. They seem to forget what it is
like to go out and labor all day long in a hard and a cruel workplace,
and then come home tired and irritable, only to have to attend
to your problems at home, responsibilities at home, especially ladies. They
have children and meals and things to take care of, and then hurry
to come out here to worship, if possible, if it's all possible. Most preachers tend to forget
what that's like if they went through that. Most preachers,
assembly line preachers, didn't go through the workplace. That's
the reason I don't believe God prepared me for the pastor and
the minister like that, because they can't enter into what people
are going through. But we lose sight of it. I lose sight of
it, and I don't want to ever lose sight of what that's like to
go out and work all day and come in here real tired. But I have,
and I will, but forgive me. But I don't want to beat the
sheep, either. I want to feed the sheep. And
I don't want to be guilty of, like one fellow said, putting
the feed up where only giraffes can get to it. I want to put
it down where the sheep can get to it. Maybe that's what I did
last Wednesday night. It was a long message, but I
still didn't say everything that could be said. But forgive me. But I'm going to make every effort,
like I've said before, To make these Wednesday night messages,
don't quote me on this, but to make them short, and it's up
to the Holy Spirit to make it sweet, but to make it short.
Above all else, I want to come to this, make this very effort
to make these messages full of Christ, as full of Christ as
I can, to serve up Christ, to feed you with Christ the bread,
and to quench your thirst with Christ the water of life. Now
look here at Psalm 23 with me. It's one of the shortest, but
one of the sweetest of all the psalms, and it's certainly one
of the fullest of Christ himself. So let's look at it very, very
briefly, I hope. This psalmist David wrote this.
This was written by the sweet psalmist of Israel, we call him,
and he himself was a shepherd of sheep. And perhaps he wrote
this after lying out in a green field of clover one day on a
nice sunny September day, and maybe the cool breeze was blowing,
and he was looking up at a nice blue sky, and maybe looking at
some sheep out in the distance. And have you ever done that?
Have you ever laid out in a field on a nice day? There's nothing
like it, isn't there? You contemplate God's goodness
and so forth. And his thoughts ran in this
fashion. He said in verse 1, he says, The Lord is my shepherd." Now,
only a true sheep can feel the need to have a shepherd. Goats
don't need a shepherd. Only sheep need a shepherd. And
these things are noted about sheep. The reason they need a
shepherd is because sheep are very weak. The weakest of all
creatures. They're very helpless. They're
very frail. They're totally defenseless. They're prone to wander as much
or more so than any other animal. Like Isaiah 53 said, as a sheep
before her shearers is dumb, sheep are just dumb animals.
And sheep need a shepherd. They need a leader. They need
a guide. And that's me. I'm so helpless, so frail, so
weak, so prone to wander. Like the song says, I need a
shepherd. But not just any shepherd will do. I don't need a mere
under-shepherd. I need more than that. I need
a great shepherd. I need somebody who's capable.
of leading, more than that, capable of picking me up and taking me
all the way home. That's the reason I need none
other than the Lord to be my shepherd, the great shepherd
who never loses a sheep, never, who will take them all the way
home, the Lord of glory, who has all authority and all power
given to him from the Father above. And because I'm so weak
and wandering, the enemy is so strong He said to the disciples,
he says, Satan has desired thee to sift you like wheat, but I
pray for you. Because the enemy is a wolf who
seeks whom he may devour, and so predatory, who preys on the
weak and the helpless. And that's me. It seems like
he's preying on me all the time, but somebody's preying for me.
So I don't have anything to worry about. And I believe I can say
with David from my heart that the Lord is my shepherd. I take
him at his word, that all that come unto God by him, he'll keep
them, he'll save them. And I take him at his word. That's
a simple faith. But I take him at his word. And
he says here, he makes this promise, because he's my shepherd, I shall
not want. That doesn't mean that I won't
desire anything. It means I shall not be in need
of anything. I shall not want. David proved
later on by saying this. He said, I've been young. And
he was probably young when he wrote this, but he said, I'm
now old. And I've never seen the righteous forsaken or his
seed begging for it. Never seen it. I shall not want
it. And later on he proved it. He said, it's true. I've never
wanted for anything. And I've never, and you probably
have never liked for anything. And he said, I've never. Food,
clothing, shelter, and above all, that one thing that is needful,
that one thing needful to sheep, care and feeding. by the shepherd
himself. Care, that is God's providence.
It has and it will provide for us everything that is necessary
for this life. And his feeding, he feeds me
upon the word. And that's what he goes on to
say here in verse 2. He says, he makes me to lie down in green
pastures. One day the Lord stopped this
old boy in his wild career who was running headlong into hell
itself. Stopped me. like a raging bull
with a red cape and sat me down and shut me up and said, Be still
and sit and feed. And he let me feed in these green
pastures of this word. That's what he's talking about
here. The green made me. You see that? It says he makes
me lie down. That's something else about a
dumb sheep. He doesn't even know when he
needs to rest. Lie down now and rest. Sit down,
shut up, and listen. And that's what the Lord did
for me. How about you? Like that prodigal, too. I was
feeding on the husks of this world. Thought I was getting
my fill. But one day, I found out there were some green pastures
to eat on. Clover, honey, bread and honey,
milk and honey. And I didn't even need to pay
for it. It was free. Milk and honey. And he fed me
with Christ, who is the Word. Christ is that green pasture
of God's Word. I will tell Terry and I were
talking about he was preaching to me and I was preaching to
him back instead. But a sheep is considered by God to be a
clean animal. You know, Noah took unclean and
clean animals in the ark with him. Well, clean animals, there
were seven of them. Six of them were for man's usage
and one was to sacrifice to God. But the clean animals, God blessed
them and sanctified them. But he said this about clean
animals. This is interesting. Matthew
Henry said this. He said clean animals. This was
God's telltale marks or signs of clean animals. They're to
part the hoof and chew on the cud. That distinguishes clean
animals from unclean ones. And Matthew Henry said that's
believers. That's God's sheep. By God's mercy and grace, they
part with their sin and chew on the gospel, feed on Christ.
Chew on the gospel. You know how it is when you hear
a gospel message and you just sit around and kind of chew on
it all day. Part with your sin and chew on the gospel. But these
pastures are green pastures. They're new all the time. You
never fail. You look in it and see something
new, green, something fresh, something you've never seen before.
And he leads me beside the still waters. Now, somebody told me
this. I don't know if it's so, but it sounds good. Barnard used
a lot of illustrations that wouldn't hold much water, but they sounded
good. But a fella told me this, that
sheep won't drink from a raging or rushing stream, that they'll
only drink from still water because they're so easily frightened.
Still water, that sounds good. But the only thing that will
still a troubled heart is Christ, that water of life, who speaks
peace to our hearts. and in Christ. This is the Holy
Spirit, also the water. The Holy Spirit, through the
water of the Word, leads and guides us to Christ, the water
of life, who stills us and gives us peace, gives peace to his
fearful, shaken flock. Peace. And after a long, cool
draft from this—boy, that makes me thirsty, this thing. After a long, cool—my, you ought
to get some of that. After a long, cool After a long, cool drought from these
still waters, this is what happens. This is what it does to you.
After you're tired and weary and hot and thirsty, it restores
your soul. Verse 3, He restoreth my soul. I'm refreshed, I'm renewed, I'm
regenerated. by the work of God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. It says, you have he
quickened. And we were talking about all
these things that restoration means. What does it mean to restore
something? Bob used to restore antique furniture. I've restored
old collars. Well, what you do when you restore
something is you rescue something. You rescue it from what? Certain
destruction. You go out in a junkyard and
you find an old car that will eventually be destroyed. It's
going to be crushed, broken. And you get that thing, you bring
it in, make it all brand new. You strip it down to bare metal.
In furniture, Terry said, you take furniture, it takes a powerful
substance to remove those stains and all those coats of varnish.
And that's what the Lord does with our souls. He restores them.
It takes a powerful substance to restore these souls to their
pristine state, doesn't it? Sinless perfection takes the
blood of Christ himself. to restore these souls, to remove
us from the curse. Christ has redeemed us from the
curse, that is, certain destruction, and he restores our soul. And
he, look at this, he does this also by leading us in the paths
of righteousness, the paths of righteousness. What's that? That's
Christ. That's Christ, who is the righteous
one. He said, I'm the way, the way of righteousness or acceptance
with God Almighty. I am the righteousness that you
need, that path, that way unto God. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me, Christ said, but by how I lived and what I did and
how I died and where I am now and what I'm doing now. It's
Christ, the righteous one, the Lord, our righteousness, our
righteous covering. And it's because of his righteousness
and his shed blood that our souls are restored. And he does this
for his name's sake. His namesake. God said that he
did it all for his namesake. He didn't do it, he didn't even
do it for our sakes. He said, I do not this for your,
oh, house of Israel, I don't do this for your sake, but for
my holy namesake that's being profaned. And that's the reason
he saves those whom he saves, the worst, so that he'll get
the most glory. He didn't come to seek and to
save righteous people, but sinners, out and out, no good rebels,
prodigals and so forth. Why? that he'll get all the glory
in this saving business. He does it for his name's sake.
Verse four, And yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow
of death, I'll fear no evil. Fear no evil through this valley
of the shadow of death. This is something about sheep
and shepherds. Sometimes sheep have to take
a long journey to get to pleasant pastures. And some of you, you
came from Bob drove five hours to get here tonight. But some
of you came from various different places to find a place where
you could feed. And as he prayed and said, it's
the greatest blessing that we can have on this earth is that
Vicki came from New York and some of you came from various
places. You have to come a long way sometimes to find green pastures,
don't you? They're just not everywhere to be found, are they? Pleasant
pastures to feed, still waters to drink in. Most of the waters
are poisonous, aren't they? Poisonous water. But sheep have
to take a long journey to find a final grazing place or shelter. And sometimes they go through
storms and wastelands. And that's like God's sheep in
this world. We go through much tribulation. The scriptures say,
you must, through much tribulation and trials, enter into the kingdom
of heaven. And Christ said, in this world
you shall have tribulation. But he said, be of good cheer.
I've overcome the world. I've walked in it and over it. I've overcome this world. And
the good shepherd, the strong shepherd, has promised to take
us all the way home to that final grazing place and shelter for
his sheep. He said, I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death, but I'll fear no evil because thou art
with me. That's the reason we need not
fear. Christ said, Lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of
the earth. Always. He said, I'll never leave
you nor forsake you. Who's this talking? Not a mere
man. This is the great shepherd talking.
The great shepherd of the sheep. He said, His sheep will never
perish because no man will pluck them out of His hand. And he
said, My Father, which is greater than all, no man can pluck Him
out of His hand. See, we're in Christ's hand,
and Christ is in God's hand. We're in a double grasp. Nobody
can possibly pry those hands loose, not even us. We're not
getting out. We're not getting out. And certainly,
we don't have anything to fear in shadows. He said here, I walked
through the valley. Listen to these words carefully
in this verse, each one of these words. We don't have anything
to fear in shadow. The valley, he says, I walk through
the valley of the shadow of day. I walk. One writer said, we need
not stop living for fear of what might happen. Have you ever walked
with your child somewhere and they hear a noise or come to
a scary place and they stop, pull back, wait daddy, wait,
come on now, I'm leading you, I'm guiding you, come on, I've
got you. You need not stop living. for fear and for worry, and you
don't need to run either. We were walking home the other
day, me and Hannah and I were taking a walk, and she heard
a dog, a notorious dog in our neighborhood, start barking.
And she says, run. She wanted to run home. I said,
no, honey, you don't need to stop. You don't need to run.
Dad is with you. Nothing, you don't need to fear.
And the believer need not stop and need not run. Just walk.
Walk on through this world. Because he's with us, he's leading,
he's guiding, and there's nothing to be afraid of. Well, as long
as he's with us, don't need to be afraid of noises, or whatever,
or the unknown. Man, he calls it the valley.
Walk through the valley of the shadow of death. We don't need
to fear shadows. The shadow of a gun can't kill
you. The shadow of a dog can't bite you. They look ferocious,
but they can't hurt you. Not a bit. You say, well, somebody
could break in on me and kill me. Well, what would that mean?
I'll take you home. What are you afraid of that for? He'd just hasten your passage
home. Thank you, bud, for sending me
home. And Christ said this, I say unto
you, my friends, listen to this, I say unto you, my friends, be
not afraid of them that killeth the body, and after that have
no more that they can do. Because this, he calls the things
of this world temporal. Shadows, aren't they? Mere fleeting.
What is your life but a paper? Oh, the shadow. This world is
not real. The things that are seen are
temporal. They're not really real. But the things that are
unseen are what? Eternal. This is reality. The unseen thing. So we walk through this valley
of the shadow of death. And death is probably what makes
us afraid more than anything. It scares us more than anything.
But he calls death a mere shadow too. And the sting has been moved,
removed. O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory? The substance has been removed.
How? Christ met it head on. He went
through it. Christ said there's no need to
fear because he died. He took death's journey. He knows
what it's like. And he came back and told us
about it, didn't he? People say if one rose from the
dead, I'd believe one did. And he came back and told us
all about it. He said to the believer, he says to the believer,
You don't need to fear death. I've been through it, and I've
taken the penalty of it for you. I've taken God's wrath. I've
taken the wages of sin in my own body upon that tree for all
who come unto God by me. I've taken their punishment.
I've taken the sting of death out, and you don't need to be
afraid of death, but you need to be rejoicing in what death
will bring in the end. He says, now, don't be afraid.
I'm with you. And he came back to tell us about
it, about this thing of death. It's like when we were down in
Florida this last time. Now, we'd been out there before,
and Hannah had been in the ocean before. But she forgot what it
was all about, and that's us. We forget what we've heard and
have to be told afresh. But I was standing out in the
ocean. We got to the beach there, and I kind of ran out in the
water, you know, and was standing out there and said, Come on,
Hannah. Come on in. Oh, she was real timid, didn't want to...
No, no, it was scary, you know, tiptoeing. Come on in. Daddy's
here. It's not to be afraid of. Come on in, believer. Don't be
afraid of going to your deathbed. Daddy's waiting. He said, I'm
with you. You need not be afraid. He holds
her hand. He's the one that's going to
greet us first thing. Not Peter, standing at the gate. That's an old wives' fable. We'll see him. He'll greet us. He'll be the first. He says,
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of the death, I
fear no evil because you're with me. And I don't care what Johnny
Cash sings. You've got to walk that lonesome
valley by yourself. That ain't what the Scripture
says. You don't have to walk it by yourself. Christ said,
I'll be with you all the way and not get stupid. little sign. If you have one of those stupid,
and that's a good word for it, stupid, that's about as base
as I can, word as I can use, that stupid thing, footprints
in the sand, jerk it off your wall. It is. Talk about, see one set of footprints
all the way and you were walking a part of the way and then you
see another set or something. No wait a minute, what is it?
I forget. But anyway, the gist of it is that that you walked
most of the way and got tired and Christ picked you up and
took you the rest of the way. That ain't it. He has to carry
us all the way. He says, I bear them on my shoulders
all the way. I go out in the wilderness. I
leave the ninety and nine and go out and seek the one and put
him on my shoulders and take him all the way home. We don't take the first step
and he meets us halfway. He carries us all the way. All
the way. Well, verse five. Or verse four. He says, I fear no evil because
you're with me. And then he says this. Thy rod
and thy staff," and these are things that a shepherd carries,
a rod and a staff. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort
me. That's God's chastening rod,
a chastening rod of the Father. That's his correcting rod. That's
the Word, too. His Word corrects us. Like I
always quote, the Scriptures are full of warnings, lest we
presume, and promises, lest we despair. But his word corrects
us, his word is profitable for rebuke, for reproof, for destruction
and righteousness, all these things. Comfort, his word chastens
us. It keeps us walking in a straight
line. That's what the rod does. Now
don't stray. Stay right here. Hey, back there. Come on, back
there. That's how his word keeps us walking straight to Christ,
looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. And
the staff, the rod smites. And the staff gently prods and
turns, got a hook on the end of it. You've seen these shepherd's
crooks or staves, you know, they reach out and grab a little one
and kind of gently bring him in, you know. Well, his staff
comforts me. The Word of God, we need both.
Someone said, one of the psalmists, smite me, and it's a kindness.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend, the proverb says. And God says
this too from his Word, comfort ye. We need comforting and we
need chastening, both from God's Word. And listen, this is Christ
too. Both these things, a rod and
a staff. I looked them up. The rod here could also mean
a scepter for ruling. A rod, a stick, a branch, a righteous
branch. But a scepter of righteousness,
a ruling, a symbol of rule. And Christ is that rod, that
ruling reigning power of God, a king. He's our staff, too.
A staff is also a walking stick. It's something that the shepherd
leans upon and finds repose in. Christ is the one we lean upon
and supports us, leans upon him. Verse 5, he says, And thou preparest
a table before me in the presence of mine enemies, the church. can refer to the church. The
church is like a prepared place for God's people to come and
seek rest and feeding. Right in the midst of a crooked
and perverse generation, this church, God has prepared this
church for his people to come in and sit and dine upon Christ's
bread and the wine. Right in the middle of this hostile
world, there's an oasis, isn't it? An oasis in the wilderness.
the table, and this could refer to the Lord's table, too. His
body and His blood prepared for us by the presence of my intimate. And He anoints, He says, thou
anointest my head with oil. This is the oil of the Holy Spirit,
whom Christ sends to lead and to guide us in all truth, to
take the things of Christ and to show them unto us. He anoints
us with oil. We've been studying the Holy
Spirit throughout John 15 and 16. If we're to get anything
out of these services, the Holy Spirit must anoint us, mustn't
He? Must anoint our eyes? He calls it here, oil. And, you
know, oil is constantly referred to in the Scriptures as the Holy
Spirit. David thanks God for oil that
makes your face to shine. And the Holy Spirit enlightens
us, illuminates us, makes our face to shine. And you can see
it in people's faces, can't you? People that know the gospel.
and no cry. I'm looking at some of them right now. When I say
some of these things, your eyes just beam. Some people you can
preach this to, and it makes them, you know, their stone face
and all. The oil hadn't been applied, hadn't been anointed
with that oil of the Holy Spirit, and we need it every time, every
time. If it's to make us, to enlighten
our minds and our hearts to Christ, and oil also, like that alabaster
box of oil or ointment, it's a sweet smelling savor too. And
the Holy Spirit makes the gospel savory to us, makes it a sweet-smelling
savor. And he anoints God, the Good
Shepherd anoints our head with oil. That's Christ, too. That's
Christ who is our head, who has the Spirit without measure. God has anointed him, chosen
him. He's the anointed one of God,
isn't he? With oil, with the Holy Spirit, without measure.
That's Christ, too. Then he says, runneth over my
cup, far from ever running dry, which we think it will. It runs
over. It doesn't run dry. It runs over,
is what it does, innumerable blessings, too many to count. They're more than the hairs of
my head, much more than the hairs of my head. They're more than
I can number. He daily, the Scripture says,
daily loatheth me with And if we thought about that, Bob, we'd
forget all about our troubles. His mercies are new every morning.
If we stop and count our blessings one by one, we'd forget all about
our troubles, wouldn't we? Oh, yes, we would, because our
cups run over. Run over. We have a double portion. He hath not dealt with us according
to our iniquities. No. Listen to this. Bless the
Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his holy
name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. He forgives your iniquities,
he heals your diseases, this is spiritually speaking, the
disease of sin. He redeems your life from destruction,
crowneth thee with loving kindness, that's his grace, and tender
mercies, he satisfies your mouth with good things, grace, and
so that thy youth is renewed like the eagles The Lord executes
righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed. He made
known His ways. Don't forget His benefits. Your
cup runs over. This place, our cup runs over.
It runs over. We've got a blessed place to
come to and hear the gospel at every opportunity. I keep using
my daughter. I'm sorry, but I think the Lord
gave me her for these very illustrations. But Mindy, we sent her to school
this year, and every morning, every morning, my wife prepares
that child to go to school. She wakes her up, combs her hair,
cleans her up, gets her clean, fresh clothes, helps her get
dressed, puts breakfast on the table, packs her lunch, gives
her money for milk money, takes her to school, picks her up.
She does it all for her, doesn't she? Huh? And that's us. God does it all for us. He does
it all for us. He daily loads us with benefits
from start to finish. Start to finish. He wakes us
up. He puts us to bed. He does all these things. And
Christ is my cup. He is my portion too. He is my portion. Look at verse
6. Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days
of my life, surely. Goodness and mercy. Why? I heard
you preach on this earth. Read it one time. Preach on it.
You preached on it, didn't you? Why? Why will His goodness and
mercy follow me all the days of my life? Because His mercy
endureth forever. Twenty-six times I say that in
that one song. Because His mercy endureth forever. Listen to this.
You remember this article by Brother Danny Blair? The goodness
and mercy are God's two faithful sheepdogs. the shepherd's sheepdogs. He said then, the good shepherd
leads his sheep, and they often lag behind or wander from the
fold. But before they wander too far
from the shepherd, they're rounded up by his two faithful sheepdogs,
Goodness and Mercy. Goodness and Mercy are never
far from the sheep, up in the highlands, down through the valleys,
good weather and bad, sometimes unseen for a moment, but they're
there. Goodness and Mercy are always at our heels, nipping,
yipping, Get back, get back, and looking for wolves. There's
nothing, if you know anything about shepherding and sheepdogs,
sheepdogs are one of the smartest animals on the face of the earth.
And aren't they standing? Boy, sheepdogs now, they're well,
highly trained dogs. And God's goodness and mercy
are at his beckoning call to round up his sheep. Goodness
to bless our way, mercy to forgive our sins, I'm thankful that the
Lord is my shepherd, and I sure love his faithful sheepdogs,
goodness and mercy. Thank God, too, I'll never outlive
goodness and mercy, because they're going to follow me all the days
of my life. Old dogs, old dogs, goodness and mercy. And he says,
I'll dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Why? Because that shepherd that we
talked But when we finally reach that
place, when we finally get there, I believe we're going to look
back and say, well, I made it. And the reason is because the
Lord was my shepherd. I wouldn't have made it unless
the Lord was my shepherd. I am so prone to wander, prone
to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. But
here's my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above."
And the Good Shepherd does. He does. Well, let's sing a song
in closing. I told you I was going to get
you out of here, didn't I? Jeanette, let's come up here
and sing then. 293. 293. This is, The Lord is
my shepherd, but it's I'm not sure about this particular tune. Do you know the tune it's written
to here? Play the, I'm not sure if I know the, we may sing it
to Alas and Did. Okay, let's sing it to, I think
it's Alas and Did on page 110, Alas and Did. Let's bring this to ninety three
and this is to the tune of the last and be it my savior The Lord's my shepherd, I'll
not want, He makes me down to lie. He leadeth me the quiet waters
by. Verse 3. Yea, though I walk through
death's dark vale, yet will I fear no ill, for God with are robbed
and that we come put still. Last verse. Goodness and mercy
all my life shall fully follow. And in God's house forevermore
My dwelling place shall be