Good morning. I talked to Gabe
yesterday, and he was on his way back to Kingsport from the
conference, and he said that he thought that they had really
good services on Friday and Saturday, and the Lord was really blessing
them. So I pray he'd do the same again this morning for them.
If you would open your Bibles to Psalm 23. Psalm chapter 23. Over the last month or so, I
have been listening to Pilgrim's Progress in my car when I travel
for work. And I remember reading it as
a kid. It's been a very interesting thing to listen to again as an
adult. And just the other day, there was a passage where the
pilgrim or the gentleman going through the story goes through
the valley of the shadow of death. And that little excerpt, that
10 minutes portion, I just kept listening to it over and over
again. And it just really struck me and I kept listening to it.
And in doing so, the phrase, the shadow of death, just really
hit me. And so I looked up in the scripture,
different places where that was used. And of course, the one
that always comes to us is Psalm 23. in verse 4 where it says,
Yea, they will walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
That's the phrase that I remember. And I don't think there was any
other verse that I could recollect that phrase, shadow of death.
But in looking up that phrase, I found quite a few verses that
were really helpful to me. Now the phrase the shadow of
death can mean a few different things. Many people look at that
phrase and they think of the death of this body. We're all
going to die. Everyone knows it. That's something
that no one even really contemplates that they're not going to die.
Now, if you have enough money, you attempt a way to prolong
it and maybe I can freeze myself, all these different crazy things.
But we're all going to die and everybody understands that. And
that's applicable in some ways. But I think a better usage of
that, at least in the scriptures, is the shadow of death is the
shadow of our sin and our nature. in the impending spiritual death.
What we've got coming is sinners. And in seeing that, that's a
really scary thought. Our sin is ever before us, and
it's just hanging above us as a shadow that just bears hard
on us. And in looking at it, I was reading
some of the old writers. And the thing I love about it,
and I'm jumping ahead of myself in this message, but it's the
shadow of death. meaning that a shadow has no
power. In my household, a shadow is
a very scary thing. At least once a week, I get a
call from my boys, and they're saying, there's a shadow, there's
a shadow. And their nightlight in the corner is perfectly placed
to shine on the ceiling for them. And they love it, and that's
what they have as their light. Well, every once in a while,
they put a toy in front of that, and it blocks the shadow, or
the curtain moves. And they know, because every
time I go in, it's been a hundred times probably, I just tuck the
curtain in or I move the toy out of the way and the thing's
gone. But that shadow is scary to them because they don't know
what's causing it. They just see the shadow. And that's the
way we are with our sin. Because of what the Lord has
done, it's just a shadow. It has no power. Our sin does
not condemn us because our Lord has paid the debt for our sin.
So we get to read about the shadow of death and we don't have to
be scared. We don't have to fear because
of what he has done. Listen to a couple of scriptures
here that we read in the Bible. In Amos, it says, Seek him that
turneth the shadow of death into the morning. And Luke, it says
to give light to them that sit in darkness, those that sit in
the shadow of death to guide our feet into the way of peace.
Turn over real quick to Psalm 107. Psalm 107. In Matthew, listen to these two
verses, the people which sat in darkness, they saw great light
and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death, light
is sprung up. Why did the people who sat in
the shadow of death, why did they see light? Because the next
verse says from that time, Jesus began to preach and to say, repent
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Look at verse eight
here in Psalm 107. O that men would praise the Lord
for His goodness and for His wonderful works to the children
of men. For He satisfies the longing soul and filleth the
hungry soul with goodness, such as this is those that sit in
darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction
and iron, because they rebelled against the words of God and
contemned the counsel of the Most High. Therefore, He brought
down their heart with labor They fell down, and there was none
to help. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and
He saved them out of their distresses. He brought them out of darkness
and the shadow of death, and broke their bands in sunder.
Oh, that men would praise the Lord for His goodness, and for
His wonderful works to the children of men! For He hath broken the
gates of brass, and cut the bars of iron asunder. In verse 13
it says, then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble. We
have to have the shadow of death hanging over us because it makes
us to call out to Him to ask Him to help us. Just in the way
that my boys call out, I'm not sure how scared they are, but
every time they call out, they know I'm going to come in and
fix it. I'm going to remove it. And that's
what the Lord does to us. He reassures us. He gives us
hope. He gives us words such as these that we know when that
shadow, when that comes over us, when we get scared, we call
upon him. Now, we know our faith is so
weak, but we know from what he's done for us and what he's shown
us that he's paid for our sins. Yet that shadow still makes us
doubt. So he continually tells us over
and over again, it's OK. And if we turn back to Psalm
23, this passage. This passage shows us and tells
us it gives us so much comfort. And Isaiah, it says, the people
that walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those that
the Lord shows himself to is it illuminates everything when
the Lord is present because he is light. There's no shadow.
There's no darkness at all. His light removes all darkness. It's the concept of when you
walk in a dark room and turn the light on. There's no more
darkness now. Just like everything in this
earth is not comparable, we still have shadows. But when his light
in glory, there's no darkness, there'll be none. Darkness cannot
exist where our Lord is. So let me tell you for just a
minute, let me give a couple minutes summary. of that portion
in Pilgrim's Progress. Now, that book was written by
Bunyan hundreds of years ago. And the stories of him preaching
and they told him that if you keep preaching, we're going to
throw you in jail. And he said, I'm not going to stop. And they
threw him in and he wrote this book. And it's an allegory of
a child of God's journey through life, through this life, looking
and searching for the Lord. And in this portion, this man,
whose name is Christian is what they call him, he comes to the
valley of the shadow of death. And it's really dark and he's
very scared. It's so dark that when he starts
to walk in it, he can't see where he's putting his feet. Now, I've
never been in any situation that's dark enough that if I concentrate
on the ground, I can't see where my foot is going to land next.
But that's how dark it is. And the path is extremely narrow. And on both sides is immense
trouble. On one side of him is a great
ditch that he's worried is going to fall in. On the other side
is a great bog that he's scared if he touches it, he's going
to get stuck in and never be able to get out of. And it's
fascinating that he can see both dangers on each side, yet he
can't see where he's putting his foot down each step. And
isn't that us? We cannot see the correct path,
the way that we're intended to go, the way we will go by the
Lord's providence. But we sure do see the trouble
that's all around us. We sure do get distracted by
that. And as he goes along, all kinds of sounds and smoke and
smells and appearances start to distract him and trouble him.
He's so worried about all these things. But he can't see them. He doesn't know what they are.
And he gets so scared at some point as he's walking, as he's
holding, he walks with a sword and a shield, the sword he's
been given. And as he gets on this path,
it's so narrow and he's so scared, he realizes he has to put up
his sword and he has to put up his shield if he's going to stay
on the path. He realizes that he can't defend himself anymore.
So at that moment, he realizes the only thing I have to defend
myself is prayer. And as he continues on that,
he starts to realize He thinks he's being chased by something,
but he doesn't know what. He doesn't know what dangers
are around, but he just feels like he's being chased by something.
And at that moment, he realizes that his only threat is to shout
out loud. I walk in the strength of the
Lord, my God. And this is our journey. We have
no idea what's coming. We don't know the troubles that
are around us. Oftentimes we think we see them, but the Lord
makes us to see when we find trouble. that we have to depend
on him. We have to look at him. And in
the darkness ahead, he thinks he hears someone else say, though
I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear
no evil for thou art with me. And he finds such great comfort
in that verse. And he finds such great comfort
in realizing that he's not alone on the journey. Someone else
is going down this path with him. And he also realizes that
the only way that anyone would ever say that is the same reason
the only reason he started praying is that the Lord had shown them
something. And he thought to himself, if he could only meet
them, then he would have a companion on his journey. And then finally,
he gets halfway through this valley of darkness and the light
breaks. The sun rises and he begins to
see. And as he looks back on what he has passed through, he
sees those trials and tribulations that he had passed through. And
he realizes there were so many more dangers and so many more
things that he passed through that the darkness had kept him
from seeing. Because he couldn't see everything,
he was able to make it through. But once he gets to the light
and once he sees it, which is Christ, he realizes that he's
no longer in danger. Once the light comes, he realizes
that he has a guide. He was amazed that he made it
this far. And when he looked forward to the second half of
his journey and the part that he'd already traveled, he realized
that the journey ahead was much more dangerous than what he'd
passed. Once the Lord shows us the path and we see who we are
and who He is, we realize how many more travails there are.
But we see that we are the actual problem. We see that we are the
ones that are in our way. But this pilgrim says, the Lord's
candle shineth on my head, and by His light, I go through darkness.
Now look with me here at Psalm 23, and I just want to take a
couple minutes just to look at a few things to see the comfort
we have in the way that the Lord provides His providence and His
light for us through this journey. In verse one there, it starts
off with the Lord. The Lord, by definition, He has
ownership over all. It's so important to know. It
seems like something that should be a given. I mean, the definition
of the word God. the definition of the word Lord.
Those things mean something, yet this world just doesn't recognize
it. The Lord God, ruler over all. He owns us. He has been given
all things by the God above. He is our Lord by divine decree. It has been proclaimed. He has
been highly exalted. He is heir over all things. He
is our Lord by death. He died, He rose and revived
that He might be Lord both of the dead and the living. He is
our Lord by faith. If thou shalt confess and believe
in thy heart, thou shalt be saved. He is our Lord. And as our Lord,
He is also our shepherd. He is my shepherd. He owns me. He owns us. The Father gave us
to Him. the sheep that the Lord gave
to the shepherd. He owns us. We're His. He also,
He loves us. He is our shepherd. We see of
shepherds who love their sheep and would lay down their life
for their sheep. I can't even comprehend that. I can't comprehend
laying down my life for a sheep. But a shepherd is given the task
of looking over their sheep. And our Lord loves His sheep.
He loves us. He also is our shepherd because
he bought us with his blood. He paid for us. And he is not
only our shepherd, but he is the chief shepherd. He is the
shepherd of all shepherds. He is the great shepherd. He
is the most powerful, the most wonderful shepherd, and he is
also the good shepherd. It's one thing to be the most
powerful shepherd. It's another to have the most
authority to be the best or whatever, but that he's actually the good
shepherd. the way He treats us and takes care of us in a way
that we don't deserve. He is the good shepherd, the
kind shepherd. And because the Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want. This word want is so often used
as we say things like, I want something. How often my children
say, I want that, I want that. We go into a store or gas station
anywhere and it's, I want that, I want that, I want that. This
is saying that we will never want. Both in that there's nothing
that we ever truly need that we won't have or He won't give
us. Mixed with, our shepherd is so great that He makes His
sheep content with what they have. We don't have to say, I
want that, I want that, I want that. Because since we have Him,
we don't want anything else. We wouldn't trade our shepherd
for anything. Our sin makes us pathetic in
so many ways in that regard. We still, I have prepared this
message and said that phrase to myself, I don't know how many
times, yet, how many times I've thought, oh, I wish I had that,
I want that, in the midst of thinking of the things that,
there is nothing we need, nothing we should want because we have
our Lord. I shall not want, even if I'm the weakest of the sheep,
If I'm the dumbest of the sheep, if I'm the feeblest of the sheep,
if I'm the wonderingest of the sheep, I don't want anything.
If I'm the weakest, it's okay because He's my strength. If I'm the dumbest, it's because
He's my wisdom. If I'm the feeblest, it's because
He is everything. He's done everything for me.
I don't have to do anything. And if I'm the wonderingest,
that's okay because I'm His sheep and He will get me. He always
searches after me. He always comes and gets me.
I may be sick, I may be sad, but I will not want if He is
my shepherd. Because He is able to save. He is able to save me. He is
able to keep that which I have committed unto Him. He is able
to present me faultless before the throne as He is able to raise
my vile body in that day. He is able. He's able to do these
things. Look at verse 2. He maketh me
to lie down in green pastures. Lying down is something we can't
do unless we're at peace. Now, by lying down, I don't mean
we just lay down. We sometimes lay down out of
fatigue. We lay down because we don't want to do something.
We lay down for a lot of reasons. But to lie down at peace? You can't have any worries in
order to lie down in peace. Because when the Lord shows us
that He's done everything, we don't have to do anything. Every
time that I'm struggling mentally and I can't sleep at night or
whatever's going on, you know what always is the problem? It's
something of this world. You know, I don't think, and
I thought about this, I don't think there's been a single time
in my entire life that laying down to go to sleep and I was
thinking of the Lord or anything about Him and I couldn't sleep.
Every time I can't sleep, it's because I'm thinking of things
of this world and of the flesh and me. That's where all our
problems are. That's everything. And the first
second word of that, he maketh me. We cannot lie down in green
pastures unless he makes us. That green pastures, the place
of pastures of tender grass, the gentle place, the place for
us to rest. Not only does He have to make
us lie down, He has to give us peace, but we also don't know
the green pastures. We can't find green pastures.
We mess everything up. He has to provide the pastures
and He has to make us lie down in them. He does it all. He maketh
me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still
waters. Our path that we tread is one
that we just look for trouble. We just can't go the right way.
And yet, He makes us, He leads us beside the still waters. The
calm, peaceful earth. The calm water. We see Peter
when he asked the Lord to let him walk to Him and he walks
on water. Nothing mattered about what the water was like when
he was walking on it. It's just that when he looked
at the water, he realized he was in trouble. He maketh us,
He leadeth us beside the still waters. He gives us peace. I
rest, we rest in our minds and soul because we're fed by His
Word and we're assured by His promises. Our peace comes from
what He has done and what He tells us. We don't look at the
troubles of this world, the darkness. Instead, we look at the light
who is the Lord Jesus Christ. That's where we find it. Look
at verse three. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth
me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake. He restoreth
my soul. In order to restore something,
something had to be in bad shape. You don't go restore something
brand new. Restoring implies that it needed
fixing. Our soul is full of sin and just
awful. He took it and by what He did,
He restored it. He brought it. He makes us to
be like Him. He restoreth my soul and He leadeth
me in the paths of righteousness. We look at Scripture and we so
often apply it to this life. And we all know that this book
is a spiritual book. This book is about our souls
and salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet so often it is also
applicable to us in this life, in the flesh. And to see that
He makes us lie down in green pastures and He lead us beside
the still waters and it says, He leadeth me in the paths of
righteousness for His name's sake. When it says, leadeth me
in the paths of righteousness, that takes it to another level.
When we say we lie down in green pastures, He leadeth me beside
the still waters, it makes us usually think of He's going to
give me a peaceful day, a peaceful life, or He's going to let me
rest in those things. But to think of this in the terms
of my soul and my righteousness, That He does that? He leadeth
me in the path of righteousness. And why does He do that? He does
it for His name's sake. Everything the Lord has done
is for His glory. He said, I must be about my father's
business. He is intent on doing what has
to be done. And what He's done is we are
going to give Him the glory. Now, everyone will give Him glory.
I love in the Scriptures when it says everyone will bow down.
Everything. It talks about the mountains,
the trees, everything will bow down to him. And either he makes
us to bow or he forces us to bow. We will bow down. Everyone
will. We don't want for redemption
and forgiveness because he restores us. In Adam we died, in Christ
we live. He did it. We can't find, we
can't recognize, we can't walk in paths of righteousness. He
has to lead us there. because it is His path. We can't
find it because we don't know it exists. We don't know anything
about it. It's His path, and He has to take us on this path.
He made us righteous before God, and He leads us in that path
both to love it and to walk in it. It's not enough that He leads
us and we walk in the path. He makes us love it. In the next
message, we'll talk about that. But them that love God, He makes
us to love Him. And in doing so, we don't love
Him. We love Him because He first
loved us. But what a glorious thing it is to be made to love
Christ. What an amazing thing. And for
His name's sake, for the praise of His grace. Look at verse 4. Yea, though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. To think one day that I will
have no fears. To think that one day things
will not cloud my mind and scare me. And my children, I talk about
the boys being scared of the shadow and everything. I'd like
to say that I'm not scared of the dark. But most of the time
I'm in the dark, it's usually when I'm in my house or I'm in
a comfortable place. If I find myself in a moment
with a flat tire on the side of the road in the middle of
the night, darkness is a little scarier to me at that moment. To think that I will have no
fears, where it says, yea, though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. How can I not fear evil? I'm consciously All the time
I'm scared of things such as, am I going to get fired? Am I
going to get pulled over on the side of the road? Is something
going to happen to my family? All these things that constantly
enter your mind that we have no control over, and I'm scared
of them. But how in the world can we fear no evil? How can
we fear nothing? Because it says, for thou art
with me. If we're with the Lord, if we're
beside Him, if we're in Him, if we're under His arm, if we're
in His hand, under His shoulder, wherever we are, if we're with
Him, if He shows us that we're in Him, we don't have to fear
anything because He is our protector, our shepherd. He comforts us.
He takes care of us. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort
me. Some people think the rod and
the staff are an example of correction and chastisement. And that's
true. I want the Lord to correct me.
I want Him to chase me. I don't want to be chasing, but
if I do something wrong, I want the Lord to correct me. Some
people say that the rod and the staff are used to number the
sheep to count them as the sheep goes through. They have the rod
and the staff and they would count them as the sheep go under
the staff. And that's true as well. It is so amazing that the
Lord has a count and a particular number of sheep. Every single
one of them is accounted for and taken care of. There is never
a moment where a single one of his sheep is not in his watchful
eye and not under his hand and not under his staff. And then
even more, think of the rod and the staff are symbols of his
sovereignty, of his direction, of his defense, his ruling, his
directing, his defending all of his sheep. And that's true,
too, because I want the Lord to rule over me. I want Him to
direct me. I want Him to defend me. I want
Him to do those things. All of those things, His rod
and staff, they comfort us. He does everything for us. Our
protector, our corrector, our numberer, our keeper. He does
all of those things. They comfort us. And the reason
they comfort us is the one simple thing. It is His rod. It is His staff. If you give
one of us the rod or the staff, we are going to abuse it. If
we have it for correcting and chastening, we will beat with
it. We will do things that we shouldn't do. If it's to number
them, we can't keep count. We lose them constantly. And
we don't have the direction or the wisdom to do anything that
he does. It's his rod, his staff, and he uses them and protects
us. Look at verse five. Thou preparest a table before
me in the presence of mine enemies. Even in the presence of our enemies,
our shepherd supplies all our needs. To sit down to eat is
something that we must do. It is our sustenance. Our Savior
provides everything we need. He prepares the table for us.
We didn't bring anything. This is not a potluck. This is
not something where everybody has their part. He prepares the
meal. He prepares the table. He prepares
the plates, the silverware, the chairs, the room. He prepares
the whole feast. He prepares it all. And He does
it in the presence of my enemies. It doesn't have to be there,
but because it's in front of our enemies, that makes us to
know that everything, everyone is submissive to our God. We
have enemies. And we could not be like our
Lord without enemies. Our Lord had enemies. We have
the world, we have our flesh, we have the devil, but he fully
sets our table. We like nothing. And in this
meal, there's no rushing. There's no confusion. There's no last minute changes.
Nothing brought by us, but we sit down at a feast with our
Lord as though our enemies don't even exist. He prepares the table
for us, and it doesn't matter who's around as long as He is
there, it will be the greatest feast and the greatest meal.
Our cup runneth over is a phrase that I love. All cups are one
of two things. Everyone has a cup and our cups
are either full and they run over or they're empty. Because
the only thing that fills us, that sustains us, that provides
for us is the Lord. And if we have him, our cup runneth
over. It doesn't matter how fast we
drink. It doesn't matter if we try to pour it all out. Our cup
is always running over. But if we don't have Him, we
don't even have a drop. There's nothing in it. Our Lord
is everything. And look at verse 6. Surely goodness
and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. Surely goodness
and mercy. Goodness and mercy will always
follow us for every day of our life. This is again a moment
where In our lives, we sure do not feel like goodness is something
that follows us around. Both in the way I act and the
things I do, no one would claim I am a person who walks around
with goodness. Though if we have the Lord, if we understand what
He's done for us, We realize that mercy and goodness is following
us in every single step we take because of him. If we have him,
goodness and mercy, that's the only thing we need. But if we
apply this spiritually to our everlasting souls, to salvation,
surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my
life forever. And in the last thing, because
of all these things, all this stuff, because of our shepherd,
because he makes us lie down, he leads us, he restores our
soul. All those things, I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever. Everything that we see here and
for that matter, everything in this book, goodness, mercy, everything,
all of it is in the Lord Jesus Christ. And if we're in him,
it says we'll dwell in his house forever. And that's not, you
know, three score and ten or whatever the number of years
of our lives, that's not what that means, because Time is something
we just can't grasp. And 70 years, 90 years seems
like an immense amount of time. But to think of that moment not
even being the snap of a finger in regards to eternity, to think
that that's how long. What's the song say? That after
10,000 days, we'll have spent no less days than we spend in
the future. Like 10,000 days can pass and
it won't actually have mattered that length of time because it
will just continue forever. to know that we will dwell in
the house of the Lord forever. We shall not want for anything
in this life or the next. And in closing, let me say it's
not a presumption to say these things, to be able to say that
I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever because we're
in him. That's not a presumptuous thing
to say. because it's not a claim of personal worth or merit. It's
not something we did. We stand before a holy God in
judgment, pleading the Lord Jesus Christ. That's all I've got to
stand on. We say these things in faith
and in confidence in him, in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is
our great shepherd, who is our chief shepherd and who is our
good shepherd. With him, we can say that we'll
dwell in the house of the Lord