Well, in God's good providence,
Mark could not have read a more appropriate text than what he
read in John 10. I want to talk to you tonight
about our shepherd. I want us to look at, no doubt,
the most quoted, the most well-known scripture in all of Holy Writ,
the 23rd Psalm. And I've titled this message
The only thing I could title it, The Lord is my Shepherd,
from the first words of this text. Psalm 23, 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, David knew something about
being a shepherd. He knew of what he wrote. He
had many, many years' experience tending to sheep, and in 1 Samuel
17, when he's speaking to King Saul before he goes out to slay
Goliath, He recounts the story and he tells the king, thy servant,
meaning David, kept his father's sheep. The sheep David kept were
not his, but he had given charge to keep them safe. That sound
familiar? And because David had been given
the responsibility to keep his father's sheep, He goes on to
recount two instances in which he risked his life to rescue
sheep. One, he tells of a bear and another
of a lion that came and took a sheep out of the herd, out
of the flock. And in both instances, David
risked his life and pursued after those predators, slew them, and
returned that sheep unharmed back to the flock. And Christ
told us this, And this is the Father's will which hath sent
me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing,
but should raise it up at the last day. Now David opens his
psalm with the words, The Lord is my shepherd. So when he wrote
this opening verse of Psalm 23, he was delighting in the fact
that the sovereign, omnipotent, omnipresent ruler of this universe
was the one who was responsible to keep him safe from all harm
which might come his way. And not only that, but in the
next line of verse one, he puts forth the assurance that there
is nothing that he will need in this life or the life to come
that shall not be provided for him by his great shepherd. So
he writes, I shall not want I shall lack for no good thing. David wrote in the Psalm 37.
He said, I have been young and now I am old. Yet have I not
seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread. I shall
not want for anything. Verse two, he says, he maketh
me to lie down in green pastures, not dried up fields, but green
pastures, lush green pastures where the sheep can satisfy their
need for nutrition. And although sheep, I did quite
a bit of research on sheep this last couple of weeks. They eat
several different foods but they thrive best on pasture grass
which is their preferred food. They'll take that if they have
a choice over everything else. And sheep like cows are classified
as ruminants. That's just another word. That
means that they receive nutrients from their food, they regurgitate
it as cud, sending it back through their digestive system to get
all the nutrition they can possibly consume from it. And as I thought
on that, I thought, is that not a good description of God's children? Many times, how many times have
you read a text or heard a sermon? And later you think on that,
you bring it back up in your mind, you chew on it a little
more, And you get the full nutrition, the spiritual nutrition, from
that message or that text. And newborn lambs, they get their
nutrition from a mother's milk for the first few weeks of their
life. And this is also what Peter described in 1 Peter 2. As newborn
babes desire the sincere milk of the Word, that you may grow
thereby. And as those little lambs, as
believers, mature, and go from the milk of the word to feasting
on the meat of the word as we grow in grace, better able to
understand God's word and better able to digest that word. And
the fact that these sheep are lying down, he maketh me to lie
down, David said in Green Pastures, means that they are at rest,
secure in the loving protection of their shepherd. And David continues, verse two,
he said, he leadeth me beside the still waters. Now, from what
I understand, the nose and mouth of sheep are designed to where
they cannot drink out of running water. It has to be still, quiet
water. David knew this when he wrote
these words. And a good shepherd never leads his sheep near a
roaring river where they might slip, fall in and be swept away. He never leads them into peril. And so it is with our Lord and
Savior. The path that He leads us on throughout our life is
always one of peace and tranquility. He never leads us into turmoil
or unrest. The Scriptures speak over and
over again of the peace of God's saints. Verse 3 says, He restoreth
my soul. Restore means to put back into
a former state or condition. And our God restores our soul
to the condition it was in before Adam's fall, a condition of innocence
and perfection through the merits of Christ. And that ETH, at the
end of that word, He restoreth my soul, it indicates that it
is an ongoing, constant progress. He daily refreshes the souls
of His saints with His goodness and His grace. What does Proverbs
322 tell us? It is of the Lord's mercies that
we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great is Thy faithfulness. And
as He fed Israel with manna every morning when they wandered in
the wilderness, so does He feed His children with daily grace,
love, and peace. He heaps on us abundant blessings. And in verse three continues,
he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his namesake. Now, one meaning of this word
path is a track or road specifically constructed for a particular
use. Now, what a good description
of the way our God leads us every day of our lives before we know
him and after leads us on a path before we know the Lord that
will lead us to the feet of Christ. The path that we trod throughout
our lives is indeed constructed by our God for a particular purpose,
the purpose of bringing us to Christ. And sometimes the paths
that He leads His people on have some pretty rough patches. Life
looks bleak and the sojourner wonders if he'll even survive
another day. Of the early explorers, when
I read this text, Debbie and I were, we stopped on the way
to Kingsport this last trip and spent a day at Cumberland Gap.
And we walked the actual road, the wilderness road, that many
of those settlers walked. The road actually runs from the
Gap through Broadhead and Crab Orchard and Stanford and Danville
and Harrisburg and on to points. Part of the wilderness road is
still in Danville. But those early explorers, that path that
they were on, many of them had high hopes of finding a life
where they might have something of their own. And many of them
did indeed have success, but many of them, that path led to
their death and their destruction, entire families wiped out by
the Shawnee. But thank God that the path that
he puts his people on leads to one place. And that is the feet
of Christ. David, when he's speaking of
this, he said, Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto
my path. Give me understanding and I shall
keep thy law, yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart. Make
me go in the path of thy commandments, for therein do I delight. And
he leads us in these paths of righteousness, we're told, for
his name's sake. That name which is above every
name, the name of our Lord and our God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Where he leads us always brings
glory to his name and his mercy to his people. Verse four. Yea, though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death. I shall fear no evil. Now, we
as believers, as I mentioned, sometimes go through some dark,
deep valleys spiritually, emotionally, physically. And it seems sometimes
that the heavens are shut up, that our prayers just fall to
the ground unanswered. And sometimes saints despair
of life itself. But it is as the words to that
old hymn, behind the frowning providence, he hides a smiling
face. And notice the wording here.
This place where we sometimes are made to walk is called the
Valley of the Shadow of Death. Not actual death, but the shadow
of death. Now a shadow can do no harm. The shadow of a sword cannot
kill. The shadow of a snake cannot bite and kill. A shadow is merely
a shape formed by an object blocking the rays of sunlight. And that
is exactly what the woes of this life are. Sometimes it seems that the heavens
are shut up. But shadows can do us no lasting
harm. They just cause us concern because
they diminish the fellowship that we have with our Savior.
But they disappear as soon as we're moved back into His marvelous
light. And we're again given the light
of his smiling countenance. But sometimes shadows are a good
thing. They can give us relief from
the heat of the day, from the trials of life, like a man about
to suffer heat stroke finds relief in the shadow of a mighty oak.
So it is with a child of God. We feel sometimes that we're
caught in the desert of this world, thirsting for a word from
our savior. But the Spirit of God comes and
relieves us with that water of life. He gives us his promise in Psalm
30. Speaking of the shadows that
sometimes overcome our hearts. For his anger endureth, but for
a moment in his favor is life. Weeping may endure for a night,
but joy cometh in the morning. Now the trials and heartbreaks
that we endure in this life are but a shadow of grief and will
surely pass away. Which is why David says in the
last part of this verse, I will fear no evil. Now, how could
he make this statement? David had been through some perilous
times. Many times he had people pursuing him to take his life.
Yet he wrote, I shall fear no evil. And he wrote in Psalm 118,
The Lord is on my side, I will not fear. What can man do unto
me? The Lord is my strength and my
song, and it has become my salvation. I shall not die, but live and
declare the works of the Lord. The Lord hath chastened me sore,
but he hath not given me over unto death. And he expands on
this even further when in the next chapter of the song, he
writes this. There shall no evil befall thee,
neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling, for he shall
give his angels charge over thee, lest thou dash thy foot against
a stone. Now, when it says that there's
no evil that shall befall us in this life, then we must believe
that all things that happen in this life are good, not evil. Otherwise, our God could not
make such a promise. Then in verse four, David gives
us the only reason we need not to fear any evil. For thou art
with me. Now, how many times in God's
word does he promise, I will never leave thee nor forsake
thee. And if we have the presence of
God with us, there's no force in this universe that can do
us harm. But some would protest, but what
about the martyrs that were tortured and burned at the stake? How
can you possibly say that God did not forsake them when they
suffered such horrible deaths? And I'll be honest with you,
I can't answer that. If I had the mind of God and
knew the mind of God, I could tell you why that occurs. But
I don't. We simply have to believe what
our God causes to come to pass. It's for our eternal good, not
our temporal good, our eternal good, and for His glory. And we will not understand, we
cannot understand in this life why these things happen to us,
to our family, to our friends, why these so-called bad things
happen. But we have this assurance. that we will one day understand
when we land on heaven's shore. It will become. As clear a day. We read the story of Joseph and
all the so-called bad things that happened to him, I love
that story. You look at all in Joseph had to think, Lord, apparently
you've just forsaken me, but we know how that story ends.
We read of Job who lost everything. And yet, in the end, the Lord
gave him more than he had in the beginning. But most times
when we endure trials and heartache in this life, we do not know
why our God does what He does. We simply have to believe that
it will, in the end, be for our good and His glory. It's called
faith. It's called believing God. Now, I've read some accounts
Fox's Book of Martyrs is a hard, hard book to read. I don't know
if any of you have ever read it, but I just have to put it
aside sometimes. But there's accounts in there
that are just astonishing of what comfort God provides to
his people at their time of death or at their time of trial. One
of my favorite is John Bunyan, that preacher, that great English
preacher of the 1600s, who spent 12 years in Bedford prison for
simply preaching the gospel of Christ and him crucified, separated
from his family. And there was no welfare, there
was no food stamps back in those days. And Bunyan wrote this,
the parting with my wife and poor children have oft been to
me in this place as a pulling the flesh from my bones. Also, because I should have often
brought to mind the many hardships, many miseries and wants that
my poor family was like to meet with, should I be taken from
them, especially my blind, poor child, Mary, who layeth nearer
to my heart than all I had besides. And he wrote this. Oh, the thoughts
of the hardships my blind one might come under. would often
break my heart in pieces. I don't know if any of you all
are even familiar with the book Mary Bunyan. If not I would encourage you
to get it. It's available on Amazon. It's a story of Bunyan's
blind daughter Mary. But I will tell you this have
a box of Kleenex handy because it is a heartbreaking book to
read it truly is. But this same man, John Bunyan,
wrote these words concerning his time in Bedford
prison. He said, I have never had in
all my life so great an inlet into the word of God as now. Speaking of his time in prison,
he wrote those scriptures that I saw nothing in before were
made in this place and state to shine upon me. Jesus Christ
also was never more real and apparent than now. Here I have
seen him and felt him indeed. I have had sweet sights of the
forgiveness of my sins in this place and of my being with Jesus
in another world. I have seen that here that I
am persuaded I shall never, while in this world, be able to express. That's what comes from trials
and suffering. And reading that reminded me
of that hymn that Judy used to sing so many times, how tedious
and tasteless the hours. Those lines that say, in prisons
would palaces prove if Jesus would dwell with me there. Now,
I believe that Paul and Silas experienced some of this in the
prison at Philippi, when after being beaten, they sat in a dark
dungeon in chains singing hymns. The verse 23 of that 16th chapter
of Acts says, and when they had laid many stripes upon them,
they cast them into prison. Now, I don't know about you,
but if I had just been beaten to where my back was a mass of
bloody sores and bloody tissue and bloody wounds, the last thing
I'd be doing would be singing hymns. I'd no doubt be bemoaning
my sad condition. I'd be looking for somebody with
some neosporin and some bandages. And I'd be wondering, no doubt,
why the Lord let this happen to me. That is, unless God's overwhelming
comfort was there to soothe my condition, to give me confidence
that He was there with me in my chains, giving me assurance
that these things were for my eternal good, and his eternal
glory. David then concludes verse four
with the words, thy rod and nice staff. They comfort me. I like
how one writer put it. He said the shepherd uses his
rod and staff to direct the sheep where they should go, pushes
those that are behind forward and fetches back those that go
astray. Mark read that 10th chapter of
john. That is such A blessed chapter. And it talks about in the days
when the shepherds kept flocks that many times, if they were
anywhere near a city, they would take their sheep to a sheepfold
as night fell. And they would turn their care
over to the porter. Now these sheepfolds generally were stone
walls, seven, eight, nine feet tall. And they kept the predators
at bay while the shepherd went home to sleep. They kept the
sheep from harm. And all this is spoken of in
that 10th chapter of John, the shepherd would then return in
the morning to gather his sheep. And I don't know about you, but
all sheep, a lot of times I'm out at Shaker Town and they have
a huge herd of sheep. They all pretty much look the
same to me. But the shepherd will return to the sheepfold
to gather his sheep and lead them to pasture. He would knock
on the door and the porter would open. at which time he would
gather his sheep out of their sheepfold. How would he do that?
He would simply call them. Christ said, I know my sheep,
and calleth them by name, and leadeth them out. Sheep belonging
to other shepherds would not respond to any voice except the
voice of their shepherd. Christ said they would flee from
a stranger. Stranger will they not follow,
nor will they hear the voice of strangers. And that shepherd
gathered his sheep, as he did, out of the sheepfold. He would
use his staff to gently tap each sheep as it went under his staff. He would count his sheep so that
none were left in the sheepfold. And as he counted those sheep,
making sure that there was not one missing, he would do this
to make sure that all his sheep were with him before he led them
to those green pastures that we just read about. This is what
David meant when he said thy rod and thy staff they comfort
me. That tap assured the sheep that
their shepherd was there and all was well and he was about
to lead them to green pastures. Those pastures spoken of in verse
2 of our text. Now next in verse 5 of our text
here, thou preparest a table before me in the presence of
mine enemies. This table spoken of here isn't
just a little snack that the Lord sets out for his people.
It speaks to the days when kings used to set out just massive
feasts for their guests. Tables overflowing with more
food than could ever be consumed. And as I thought on this, it
reminded me of the goodness of our God, how he sets us before
a table overflowing with His grace, with His mercy, with redemption,
with sanctification, with glorification, and with every conceivable blessing
that is found in that storehouse of our mighty God, that storehouse
of the Lord Jesus Christ, that one in whom we're told are hid
all the treasures of God. Then David says this, Thou anointest
my head with oil. Now, many times in the Old Testament,
we read of the act of anointing oil. This practice symbolizes
setting apart of that person for a holy purpose. This anointing
indicated that that person was consecrated or set apart for
a special purpose, that they were sanctified, which means
that they were chosen by God for a specific purpose. In this
case, for the purpose of being made holy, through the imputation
of Christ. So when David wrote these words,
he was saying that God had chosen him in Christ for a special purpose. That Christ was his good shepherd
who accomplished his sanctification when he shed his blood on David's
behalf. And so it is with every chosen
child of God. He spiritually anoints our head
with oil, indicating that we are indeed set apart to be the
object of his grace or his grace. Then David then declares, my
cup runneth over. So abundant are the gifts of
mercy and grace that our God pours out. David pictures this
as one being served the sweetest of wine and the server when the
glass is full continues to pour and that wine runs all over the
table of blessings. Malachi spoke of this when he
told us how God will open the windows of heaven and pour you
out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive
it. Then lastly, verse six tells
us this. Surely goodness and mercy shall
follow me all the days of my life. Now, I puzzled over this
for a long time. I didn't read any other commentators. I just thought on this for a
couple of weeks actually, and it seemed to me like it should
read, surely goodness and mercy shall go before me all the days
of my life. Go before him to clear any obstacles
in his path. But when I thought on this, the
Lord showed me something. And I thought back to those days
when kings used to have royal attendants that followed them
everywhere. Followed on the king's heels.
And they were there to immediately respond to any need that the
king might have. So it is with the goodness and
mercy that our God bestows upon us. We being of royal blood,
and by that I mean children of the God of this universe, have
God's goodness and mercy right on our heels every moment of
every day, both before we come to Christ and after we come to
Christ. And as with all the gifts of
God, the bestowing of this goodness and mercy are His sovereign choice. He made this clear when He said
to Moses in Exodus 33, I will make all my goodness pass before
thee, And I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee,
and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will
show mercy on whom I will show mercy." And then David ends his
psalm with these words, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever. Now these last words don't really
need any further explanation. David knew that there was a place
prepared for him where he would spend eternity, and he calls
it the house of the Lord. Turn over with me to 1 Kings.
This brought to mind this text in 1 Kings. Let me find it here. In 1 Kings
chapter 10. I'm sorry, yeah, 1 Kings chapter
10. starting in verse 4. And when the queen of Sheba had
seen all Solomon's wisdom, and the house that he had built,
and the meat of his table, and the sitting of his servants,
and the attendance of his ministers, and their apparel, and his cupbearers,
and his assent by which he went up into the house of the Lord,
there was no more spirit in her. And she said to the king, It
was a true report that I heard in mine own land of thine acts
and of thine wisdom. How be it I believed not the
words until I came, and mine eyes have seen it. And behold,
the half was not told me. For thy wisdom and prosperity
exceedeth the fame which I heard. Happy are thy men, happy are
these thy servants, which stand continually before thee. and
that hear thy wisdom. Blessed be the Lord thy God,
which delighteth in thee to set thee on the throne of Israel,
because the Lord loved Israel forever. Therefore, may he the
king to do judgment and justice. The Queen of Solomon speaks of
the glory or the Queen of Sheba speaks of the glory that Solomon.
That she heard about. But she couldn't really believe
that anybody could be this magnificent that could put forth this much
majesty. But when she finally saw it with
her own eyes, she was overcome. She was overwhelmed and found
that even the glowing descriptions that she had heard didn't begin
to scratch the surface of the glory of King Solomon. And so
it will be. when we're given the unimaginable
privilege of seeing our glorious King of
Kings and Lord of Lords in all his splendor. We will then and only then realize
that our grandest imaginations did not even scratch the surface
when it comes to the magnificent majesty of our God and Savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And we will be blessed with the
privilege of dwelling in the house of the Lord forever and
singing His praises. Singing the praises of Him who
is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord who is our Shepherd. Let's look to the Lord.