The Lord is my shepherd, I shall
not want. He maketh me to lie down in green
pastures. He leadeth 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, we began looking last week
at this particular psalm, and from the perspective of the Lord
as our Shepherd, and He is indeed the Great Shepherd, the Good
Shepherd, and the Chief Shepherd, the Scripture says, and He's
the One Shepherd. All of those things He's described
as in the Scriptures. And surely he is a faithful shepherd
in all things. Beyond that, if he is not, then
we don't have any hope. You know, our hope is not in
our ability to believe. Some people think that it is.
You know, if you believe strong enough, you'll be all right. You're in trouble if that's going
to be your thing that's going to hold you up, because the hour
will come when you can't leave. The hour will come when all of
that, all of the efforts of the flesh are going to cease. And
your heart may still beat, but you won't have the ability, the
will to do anything. But you see, the Lord is my shepherd. And even in such times as that,
we will not want. We'll have the things that we
stand in need of because He is the provider for His people,
even as He has promised to do. Now, a good shepherd provides
for his sheep. He's not going to allow his sheep
to be without the thing they need. Not always is it that the
sheep have exactly what they need, even as a child is taught
to eat his vegetables even when he doesn't really particularly
like vegetables. Now, there are some kids that
like vegetables, but there's very few. You know, you don't
have to teach kids to like donuts because that's just kind of natural. cake, ice cream, and all of those
things. But sometimes, you know, eating
collard greens or okra or something like that, that doesn't really
appeal to them. And then, of course, you know,
as you get older and your taste, you realize those things are
good, but not so much so. And so it is that even in such
times as we are in, Not necessarily. getting what we want. It doesn't
mean I shall not want. It just means that it's not that
we're going to get everything that we want, but the need that
we have. Whatever it is that we are in
that place of standing there, the Lord will provide. He says,
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leaded me beside
the still waters." Now, everything about this song is set forth
the activity of what the Lord does. And I think that's probably
one of the things, if I had to analyze most preaching that you
hear today, And I don't mean this in a critical
fashion, but it's just an observation that I have. As you listen to
most preaching today, its emphasis is on what men are going to do,
what they need to do, what they ought to do, what they should
do, and all of those things. And surely we all know there's
plenty of stuff we should do and ought to do and all of that.
But dear brethren, that's not why we come together. to worship the Lord. And that's
not what the Psalms are written about. They're written about
what God has done. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall
not want. Why? Why is it that you shall
not want? Well, He says the reason, He
maketh me to lie down in green pastures. You know, another thing
kids don't like is taking a nap. You know, it's a funny thing. A child can be eaten and they
can fall asleep just in the chair eating. But if you take them
at the same time when they just fell asleep and you said, now
you've got to take a nap, they'd be as wide awake as they could
be, wouldn't they? Because that's just the way it
is. But you see, He maketh us to
lie down in dream fashion. He causes us to have to take
a nap. Now we need to lie down in the
green pastures. We need to rest. Remember Martha, she was busy
about many things. And the Lord wasn't being critical
of her. He was just pointing out to her
that she was busy about many things. But he said Mary had
chosen the better part. Now why did Mary choose the better
part? Wasn't because Mary was just
way smarter than Martha or anything like that? No. Because the Lord
made her to lie down in green pastures. And it's a blessing
when the Lord causes us to just pause in the midst of all the
stuff that's going on and to just rest. There remains, the
Scripture says, a rest for the people of God. Now that literally
means, if you look at the original language, it says there remains
a Sabbath keeping to the children of God. The Sabbatarians, they take that
passage and they just go to town with it. They just love that,
you know. And they say, well, what that means is there's still
a day. But if you read the context of the whole passage of Scripture,
you realize that's exactly what he's not saying. Our rest is
in Christ. It's not in the day. You know,
the Sabbath-keeping for the children of God is not in the day. It's
Christ. He's our rest. He's the one in
whom we do rest. He maketh me to lie down in green
pastures." Well, where is the green pasture? Is the green pasture
somewhere where I find it? No, it's the place where He has
made it. And it is Him, Himself. I mean,
He is our green pasture. He leads us into green pastures.
But He is, because where is the greatest blessing for the children
of God, but to be reminded of that which Christ has done. Now,
there's no sweeter thing for God's children than to be reminded
about what Christ has done. Because what Christ has done,
we know that is not going to fade away. It's not going to
dissipate. It's not going to run out. It
is a green pasture because it's a living pasture. He leadeth
me besides the still waters. He takes me by the hand and He
shows me the rest that is in Christ. You know, a still water,
when you, sometimes, you know, you look out on a lake, And it's
very seldom smooth. It's usually always got some
ripples and whatnot in it. But it is a peaceful thing. It's an amazing thing. You usually
see this early in the morning, like on the river or on a lake
or something. And there's just nothing. Nothing
moving. I mean, it's just as still as
it can be. It's just uninterrupted. And that's the place where the
Lord brings His people. when He causes them to be reminded
of that which He has done. There's not a ripple. There's
nothing to disturb anything. It's just there. It's just beautiful. He leadeth me besides the still
waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth
me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Now, He
restoreth my soul. Now, you know, when we think
of something being restored, We think of something that was
in a position that it needed to be. If you say we're restoring
a car, well, you don't go down to the parking to the new car
dealer and get a car and say, yeah, I'm going to buy me a car
so I can restore it. Well, how foolish would that
be? I mean, it's already perfect. Well, the Lord's people, they
need restoring. I mean, we've got rusty spots
in us, and we need that rust cut out. You know, we need new springs,
and we need new parks put in us. And He does restore our soul. That is the work of the shepherd.
He takes the sheep that are in need. You see, the Scripture
says He must needs go through Samaria. What was the need that
he had? It wasn't a need for him. I mean,
he didn't have a need in the sense that he was lacking something. But he must need to go through
because the need that he had was the need to meet the needs
of the woman that was at that well. And she didn't even know
she needed anything. But he told her. And when he
told her, she knew what she did need. And He met that need. He restored her soul. And so
it is that the Lord does restore the soul of His people. He causes
them... He does whatever is necessary
to bring them to the place where He is. Now, at different times
in our life, we need different types of restoration. You know,
I mean, restoration can come after perhaps some egregious
sin has been committed in our life and we've wounded many people,
like David. I mean, you know, David committed
an atrocious thing and he hurt many, many people, but he understood
That the crime that he committed was against God. It wasn't against
all of his people. Although it was, those people
were caught up in the effects of what he did. But you see,
he needed that restoration from that. And the Lord was able to
restore him to that thing. We need restoration every day.
We don't have to have committed some heinous act of sin that
just takes people's breath away when they hear about it. That
has to be what it is to be restored. But it is when we find ourselves
doubting Him, doubting His faithfulness, doubting His comfort, Doubting
that He will meet our need. He restores our soul. You see,
He brings us to the place where we know these things to be true.
They're a place where we can rest. In Him, He restores my
soul. He leadeth me in the paths of
righteousness for His name's sake. Now, what is the path of
righteousness? Now, people think Well, the path
of righteousness is the path that goes away from the barren.
The path of righteousness is the one that goes here, goes
there, this, that, and the other. But all the paths of righteousness
lead to Jesus Christ. That's the path of righteousness. A man can't be righteous. It is not found in Christ. I
mean, that's the only place that any righteousness that we have.
Isaiah said, Our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. The very
best we do. I mean, everything that we can
bring to the Lord is tainted in one way or another. But He
is our righteousness. Now look what it says, He leadeth
me in the paths of righteousness for His namesake. All that the Lord does, He does
for His name's sake, for His glory. Now see, this is a blessing
to the sons of God when they come to a place where they can
grasp it and see the glory of it. Why do we preach the gospel? I mean, we preach the gospel
for His name's sake. If nobody hears us, So what? We preach the gospel for His
name's sake. We know people hear us. We want
people to hear us. We even put forth effort that
people may hear us. But we preach for His name's
sake. We're not preaching for the result.
I don't know what the result is. Young people think they know
what the result is. And they look at this, they count
numbers, and they say, well, we reached so many people. Well,
I don't know if you reached anybody. I mean, you know, we put things
on the radio, and you know the thing that the radios play, and
you don't know if anybody's listening or not. May not be, but there
may be somebody riding down the road. And they say, well, I think
I know who that was. They may rejoice in what they
hear. And so it is that we do these things for His namesake.
He leads us in paths of righteousness for His namesake. He saved His
people for His namesake. He said that. He said, for my
own namesake, for my glory. See, that's why He's redeemed
Israel. That's why He's gathered His people from out of the corners
of the earth where He scattered them, because He would have glory
unto His name. He would magnify the name of
His Son in the redemption of a people. He leadeth them past
the crisis for His name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death. In fact, it doesn't make any
difference. where the Lord leads us, even
if it's through the valley of the shadow of death." Now this
word, valley, here means a ravine. It has the picture of being a
steep-sided ditch that one is in. Now you know a grave is really
a ditch. And a rut is a grave when the
end is knocked out of it. And even whenever we are walking
in a rut, when we are in a grave, when we are in a place that we
cannot get out of, yea, though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Because even in our
lowest times, you see, the Lord brings low times upon His people.
that they might remember this. See, you can't know that you
won't fear in the valley of the shadow of death until you're
in the valley of the shadow of death. You can't know it. You
can't experience it. You can't rejoice in it. See,
everybody wants to have dying grace. Oh, I hope I have dying
grace. Well, you've got to be on your deathbed to have dying
grace. But you know what the psalmist
says, that even when death hangs over me like a cloud and all
of the darkness of death is surrounding me, I will fear no evil. Now
does he mean he wouldn't have trepidation? You think when David
was going up there with five rocks in his pouch and a sling
in his hand, Goliath was standing there ten
foot tall. And he was just a little guy. You don't think his heart was
just beating, you know, pretty hard. And you don't think he
said, buddy, I've fed on more than I can chew now. But you
see, yet in the midst of that, David could say, the angel I
walked through the valley of the shadow of death, because
he was looking death right in the eye with his dog. I mean,
here was a man big enough to just with one small swoop of
his sword just cut him in half, half his hand in him. In the midst of that, he feared
no evil. That is, it didn't make a difference
if that did happen. See, when Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abednego were cast into the fire of furnace, they didn't
know the outcome. See, you'll often find myself
looking at situations like that, and I look at it from another
view, and I say, man, I wish I'd have been there. No, you
don't. Because when Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were brought
up to the fire of Barnabas, they weren't expecting they were going
to walk around in the fire. See, they didn't get to read
the book. I mean, they didn't get to read what happened. They
were actually living through it. And so later on, they could
testify, yes. Even in the valley of the shadow
of death, the Lord was with us. He kept us. Because they were
fixed to be cast in and they didn't have any hope outside
of what? That He would do what He was
going to do if it was going to be burned up. I mean, they didn't
know what it was. And so we don't know what an
illness comes upon us if it be unto death or Oh boy, we don't
know what it is, but we do. We have, by the grace of God,
the promise of God, "...and yea, though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." Because the shadow
of death is merely that. It's a shadow. You know, shadows disappear. That's all that the grave is.
It's the shadow of death. Because you see, to the man who
is outside of Christ, the grave is not a shadow of death. It
is death. It is death. But to the man who's
in Christ, it's but a mirage. It's just a portal through which
we pass into the presence of the Lord. And that's our hope. Paul said it. He said, brethren,
if the dead rise not, we are of all men most miserable. There's
a place of our hope. It's that in this flesh we'll
see God. That we shall be raised from
the dead. Now we have that. Why do we have
it? Because He's given it to us. He restores our souls. Now
do we have it right now? I mean, we do in a measure and
prospect. We believe we do. But you see,
If you've read Pilgrim's Progress, and of course I know most of
you have, but whenever he got to the river and he was about
to cross, he was about to go under. And I believe it was Old
Faithful said, it's okay. He said, there's rocks here that
you can stand on. And he said, you know, that he
saw that there was and he was able to make it through because
of the fact that the Lord did not depart from him. And he will
not. He may bring us down to the point
of destruction. And we can't see any way out.
Well, it's right then, you see, that the Lord does demand us
to. The valley of the shadow of death, the real death. I will
fear no evil. Why? For thou art with me, thy
rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Now, the Lord said that if
a man is without chastening, then he is a master and not a
servant. That is, if a child is without
chastening, then their mother and father don't love them. They
don't care for them. But the chasing of the child
is the proof that the father or the mother cares about the
well-being of the child. And so it is here that he says,
for thou art with me. I know that you're with me because
you have chastened me. Now, dear brother, if you've
never had the chastening of the Lord in your life, and I don't
mean just taking you out behind the woodshed and whipping you. That's usually what people think
of when they think about chastening. I'm talking about if the Lord's
not teaching you. See, chastening is teaching.
It's not the result of an event. It's not the harsh bringing down
the hammer because you did something wrong, but it's the daily instruction
that God gives to His people is the chasing of His people.
See, David was chasing. He was chasing before. He had
the episode of Bathsheba. The Lord was chastening David.
Peter was chastened not as a result of his denial, but his denial
was a chastening of the Lord. The Lord brought him to that
place to humble him, to bring him in. He said, Peter, this
night before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times. Peter didn't believe that. Not
at all. It wasn't the first time he didn't
believe the Lord. There were several times the
Lord said, Oh, no, no, it's not going to be like that. No, sir.
Well, what did Peter need? Peter needed an unbelief. And
the Lord knew exactly what he needed. And Peter would say,
The Lord is my shepherd. For thou art with me, thy rod
and thy staff, they comfort me. Now, was Peter comforted? when
he went out and wept? Was he comforted when he was
so overawed in his soul that he had denied the Lord when the
Lord brought this repentance upon him? No, he didn't have
any comfort at all. But you see, that's not the way
chastening works. Chastening is not comfortable,
but it is a comfort. See, there's a big difference
in being comfortable and having a comfort. And he says here,
thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thy rod. Spare the rod and
spoil the child. Now the Scripture doesn't say
that specifically, but that is a principle that is taught in
the Scripture. And that the Lord uses the rod
on His people. That's not the only means whereby
he chastens his people, however. And this is where I believe a
lot of people make mistakes about when they read about the chastening
of the Lord, is they think of it as just the rod coming down
on their back. But he said, Thy rod and thy
staff they comfort me. Now what is the staff? The staff
was the stick that the Lord used to guide His sheep. He didn't
beat them with it. The shepherd uses the staff. Sometimes they claim, and of
course, again, I'm just going on things I've heard. I've never
really studied any of this, but the shepherd's staff had a hook
on the end of it. And if the sheep got out of the
way, he might gently reach over there and pull him back in the
way. He didn't necessarily beat him back into the way, but you
see, the rod and the staff are both used by the Lord because
sometimes He does bring the rod down upon our backs. But they're
a comfort to us. Thank God that we're not without
chastening. Thank God that we're not turned
over completely to ourselves. Just think about it. If you could
just go off and do whatever you wanted to do. God's people can't go off and
do whatever they want to do. Now that's what those that tell
us, well, you shouldn't preach grace, That's what they say. You need to be careful with preaching
that grace stuff because people will get the idea they can just
go off and do anything. Let me tell you what, when grace
is operational in a man, I've never met a man yet in which
grace was operational and it wasn't sinning far more than
he wanted to. Now when a man says, well, I'm
just going to go off and sin some more because I'm under grace.
That man is a stranger to grace. He doesn't know what grace is
because you see his rod and his staff comfort us. They bring
us in. He brings his people along. My
sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me.
He's able to bring us to the place he wants us to be. They
comfort us. He comforts us by those things. He said, Thou preparest a table
before me in the presence of mine enemies. Now, he prepares
a table. That is a banquet. Now, I can't
help but think of this, and I mentioned this last week, I believe, about
the fact that the Lord himself, as a man, this was his song. Just as much as it is your psalm
and my psalm and David's psalm, this was the Lord's psalm. It
was a praise unto the Lord. You see, the rod and the staff
of the Lord comforted him as well. Why? How do we know that?
It says he learned what? Obedience by the things which
he suffered. Now I can't wrap my head completely
around that. I don't understand that completely,
but I know that it's true. I know that he experienced those
things that men experience. And so it is that he prepared
the table before me in the presence of my enemies because you see,
when the Lord Jesus Christ hung on Calvary's cross, And he was suffering in body
and mind, yet at the same time, he was trusting in the Lord. How do we know that? Because
when he came, what was his last words? Father, into thy hands
I commit my spirit. So you see, we know he trusted
the Lord. See, a man doesn't... When a
man has given over unto the Lord, that's trusting the Lord. Trusting
the Lord is not what you say. It's what you are. It's what
the Lord has made you to be. Thou preparest a table. So he
was eating the sweet things of God even in the very moment of
his death. In the very presence of his enemies
when they cast these things into his teeth and they said, well,
you know, if you're so great, if you're the Son of God, why
don't you bring yourself down from the cross here and take
us with you? I mean, come on, do something
here. But in the presence of his enemies,
yet he had comfort in the presence of the Lord. Even, and this is,
I can't quite grasp this, even in such time, as the Lord forsook
him. And he felt the anguish of God.
Yet, there was never a moment. Can you think of this? There
was never a moment when he did not trust to the faithfulness
of his Father. Now, as a man, he didn't know
the thing He didn't understand. And I use that where I don't
ever like to use the word he didn't understand when we talk
about him who made understanding. But as a man, as he said, there
is something given even that the son doesn't know, but the
Father in that respect. He didn't understand why it was
that the Father had forsaken my God. My God, why has He forsaken
me? And yet, in the midst of all
of that, he had a table spread before him, whose for the joy
that was set before him, he endured the cross in the midst of it,
because he desired to please his Father, and that was the
thing that gave him joy. Thou preparest a table before
me in the presence of mine enemies. You know, we are blessed. Because
we live in an ungodly society. I mean, more so every day as
we can see it. Now, are men not a bit different
now than they were a thousand years ago? Men were no more godly
a thousand years ago. God just has seen fit to remove
the restraints of men that He has placed on men more so, I
believe, in our day and time, perhaps than in times past. But
men are no different than they've ever been. And in the presence of our enemies,
we are walking in the presence of our enemies. The people of
the world do not love the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, they love
what Brother Al was talking about there today, social justice,
and they'll even use the Scriptures and stuff to justify their positions
and what not, but I'm telling you that those that do not exalt
and honor the name of Jesus Christ alone as the salvation of God's
people, they are our enemies. They are against us. Those that
don't fall down and worship at His feet, They're against us. I mean, we're not physically
against them. We're not sent into the world
to hurt anybody. We're harmless as doves, the
Scripture says. We're not trying to bring anything
upon anybody. But we recognize that the world
is not our friend, but in the presence of our enemies. He's
prepared a table for us. He hasn't left us alone. We don't
have to just eat the stuff that's put out in hog trough, do we? We're given something that's
better than that. Thou knowest my head withal,
my cup runneth over. Now you know, of course we know
the cup. Some of this stuff, the concept
of anointing somebody with oil is a thing that is kind of foreign
to our culture and way of thinking. But the anointing of oil or the
anointing that people would give was a sign of great honor. You remember the woman that came
to the Lord and bathed His feet and anointed His head. She put
expensive stuff on Him. And of course, everybody said,
well, he should have sold that and given it to the poor. That's
a waste. But he anoints our heads with
oil. He gives us a sweet-smelling savor of the things of God. He causes us to delight in the
things of God. Why does one man love to hear
the Word of God, and one man wishes he was somewhere else
because of the grace of God. Only thing. I mean, you know,
there's only one thing that makes the Word of God precious to a
man. It's the grace of God. The mercy
of God. Down north is my head below,
my cup runneth over." He didn't just fill it up, but he poured
it over the edge. And of course, the literal, as
we look at this, my cup runneth over, it's not just it ran over,
but it's running over. We can't drink it dry. We drink
it and it can still some more, like the woman with the Cruisal
oil that did not fail. She made the cakes every day,
but every time she went back, she still had the same amount
of oil. It didn't run out. See, you can't
over-drink from the cup of the Lord, because He keeps filling
it up. It's a never-ending supply. My cup running over. They light
them. All of that. In light of those things, can
we not say with the psalmist, surely, goodness and mercy shall
follow me all the days of my life? If the Lord has brought
a man out of the darkness and into the light, he's caused him
to see the preciousness of Christ. He's caused him to delight in
the things of God. He's caused him to love the work
of God. He's caused him to love to see
the name of Christ exalted. If that be not true, is it not
also true that this shall endure forever? Surely, goodness and
mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell
in the house of the Lord forever. How do we know that we shall
dwell in the house of the Lord forever? But He sent the Spirit of the
Son into our heart, crying, Abba, Abba. And if a son asked of Him a piece of bread, would He give
him a stone? No. He said he'd give those to his
children. We can trust him. I can't trust
myself. I trust you, but I don't trust
myself. I know I can't trust myself. But you know, I don't
trust you. I hate to tell you, but I don't
trust you. Not with what I'm talking about
here. I don't trust any man with evil. But I'll tell you this.
I do trust, by the grace of God, that he which has begun good
work shall perform it until the end. Now that's the key, dear
brother. He that hath begun good work
will perform it. Oh, don't be sidetracked with
things that men call the beginning of a work. He, if he's begun
good work, he'll perform it. And may the Lord give us grace
to trust Him and believe in Him.