Our text of this message is probably the
most familiar passage in all the Bible.
In fact, I didn't know when I was
a school kid that everybody had to memorize
this passage.
And usually, you will hear this passage of
Scripture read at almost every single funeral.
Oftentimes, it is read to the bedside of
someone who is very, very ill.
And I'm sure that many of us have
read the stories of men in war who,
in times of great fear, pulled out their
little pocket New Testament, in the back of
which was the psalm, and they began to
read out of fear, desiring courage, and the
presence of God to read, The Lord is
my shepherd, I shall not want.
So when you turn to the 23rd psalm,
and I want us to read this psalm,
and there's one particular phrase and facet in
here that I want us to deal with,
and the title of this message is The
Believer's Valley Experiences.
The Believer's Valley Experiences, and if we all
read out of the same version, we'd just
all stand up and read it together.
But since we have many different ones, it
probably wouldn't make a lot of sense.
So, beginning in verse 1, The Lord is
my shepherd, I shall not want.
He makes me to lie down in green
pastures.
He leads me beside quiet waters.
He restores my soul.
He guides me in the paths of righteousness,
for his name's sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death, I fear no evil,
for thou art with me, thy rod and
thy staff, they comfort me.
Thou preparest the table before me in the
presence of mine enemy.
Thou hast anointed my head with oil, my
cup overflows.
Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all
the days of my life, and I will
dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Well, as we think about this particular psalm,
I want us to look at, if you
will, at the fourth verse, and notice what
he says in this fourth verse.
Even though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death, I fear no evil,
for thou art with me, thy rod and
thy staff, they comfort me.
Oftentimes in the Bible, valleys are indications or
symbols of times of difficulty, hardship, trial, suffering
and pain.
And I want us to look at this
passage in the light of that title, and
that is the believer's valley experiences.
And I want to say three things primarily,
and the first one is this, that valley
experiences are inevitable in the life of every
believer.
Valley experiences are inevitable in the life of
every believer.
For example, if you have mountains, you're going
to have valleys.
You can't have a mountain peak without a
valley.
Now, most of us would like for our
Christian life to be from peak to peak,
wouldn't we?
We'd just like to go from peak to
peak and somehow be able to aboard the
valley.
But you can't have a mountain peak without
having a valley.
Topographically, as far as the land is concerned,
where you've got beautiful mountains, you've got valleys.
And the same thing is true in the
life of the believer.
There are going to be those valley experiences
in our life.
And if you'll notice in this passage how
he begins, he says, The Lord is my
shepherd, I shall not want.
And then what we have is this beautiful
description of the shepherd leading the sheep into
the meadows on the hillsides.
He says, he makes me lie down in
green pastures, leads me beside quiet water, restores
my soul, guides me in the paths of
righteousness, and then notice verse 4 how he
says it.
He says, Even though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, even though
I do that, which is his way of
saying it's not the norm.
God does not intend for us to live
in the valleys, or that's our normal way
of life.
But there will be those seasons in our
life, those times in our life, those experiences
that become valley experiences, times of difficulty, hardship,
trial, pain, rejection, you name it, they're there.
And so what he's saying in this passage
here, even though I walk through these, he
says, I will fear no evil.
Notice the four words he mentions in that
fourth verse.
He speaks of shadows, of death, of fear,
and of evil.
All four of those indicate something to us
about the nature of the walk in the
valley.
And so when he says, even though I
walk in the valley of the shadow of
death, he's talking about hardship and pain and
suffering and trials and tribulations and heartaches and
burdens that we go through in life, and
oftentimes we feel hopeless, oftentimes we feel helpless,
and no matter what anybody does, we feel
absolutely, totally dependent upon God, or if that
person is not a believer, they have to
do something else to find out how to
help themselves through the valley experiences.
This is why the bars are filled in
the afternoons about 5 o'clock.
They call that the happy hour.
It certainly is not a happy hour.
If you look around, you'll notice if you're
in a restaurant, they don't look all that
happy.
But what they're doing is trying to escape
the valley experiences that they're going through.
And think about a person who is not
a believer, a person who doesn't have God
to turn to, and then when the bottom
drops out, then when they go through some
valley experience in life, what do they do?
They have to drink, they have to take
pills, they have to do something, they have
to have some kind of experiences or affairs
of some sort in order to get their
mind off of the pain, off of the
hurt, off of the rejection, off of the
loneliness, off of those indescribable feelings which they're
trying to avoid.
So what he's saying in this passage is
simply this.
All of us are going through some of
these experiences in our life.
It may be because of finances, it may
be because of family, it may be because
of health, it may be because of vocation,
or whatever it might be.
There's no such thing as living in this
life without valley experiences.
One of the reasons for that is because
of the end result of those valley experiences,
which we'll come to a little bit later.
I live in a world of sin and
of evil.
There are two forces fighting each other, and
that is the forces of righteousness and the
forces of evil.
Likewise, there are situations and circumstances in life
that thrust us oftentimes into those valley experiences.
And so as I think about it, one
of the things that I want to mention
here and discuss is the fact that there
are reasons and why is it we end
up in valley experiences.
Now, if you're wise this morning, you'll get
your pencil and piece of paper out and
you won't miss a lot of this.
Because I want to tell you, if you're
sitting here today and you're thinking, I've never
been through one of those, then my dear
friend, get ready.
Because there is no such thing as walking
on a mountain peak without hitting a valley.
There are valleys in our life and there
are valleys there for several reasons.
So let's talk about, first of all, why
we go through these difficult trying times that
are so painful, so heart-wrenching and so
unbelievably causing us to feel so helpless.
Well, one of the reasons is this, and
that is the sheep strays away from the
shepherd.
For example, if the sheep strays away from
the shepherd, they're going to stray usually in
the wrong places.
And so when we choose to be disobedient
to God, we choose to transgress his law,
to violate his principle, what happens is we
end up in the valley.
So one of the reasons we get there
is we get there by our own decision.
A second reason we may end up in
a valley experience is because of the actions
of some other people or someone else.
For example, a fellow said to me this
week, he was telling me about his vocation
and he was doing his job, he was
faithful, he was well-respected in his particular
vocation, doing a good job.
Because of his conviction and because he felt
like he had to make a statement of
where he was, what he could and could
not do, they fired him, just like that,
with no warning.
So suddenly he found himself in the valley,
he had a family to take care of,
no job and no income.
So oftentimes it's because of someone else's decisions
or their actions.
And then there's a third reason we get
in the valley, and that's this, that's because
the shepherd leads us into the valley.
You see, the reason we get into these
valley experiences are not always because of what
we do or what someone else does.
Sometimes it is God's design for our life.
As a result of that, what he does,
he leads us into a place and leads
us the way he desires to get us
where he wants us to be.
One way is the way most of us
would like to go in life.
When we see a difficulty, what we'd like
to do is we would like to walk
around the pain and the hurt and the
suffering and the trial and the tribulation and
rejection and get there.
That's one way, and you can get there
that way sometimes.
But sometimes when the good shepherd, the Bible
calls him, is leading us, here's what he
does.
He knows he can lead us around that
way.
That's no problem with him.
He knows there's a path around that way.
But you see, what he has in mind
is the purpose over here for our life.
And because that purpose is so clear and
that destination is so clear to him, he
chooses, God in his grace and goodness and
love, chooses not to lead us the easy
path, but to lead us into the valley
of difficulty, hardship, trial, pain, and intense suffering
like we have never experienced before.
We get to the same place.
But this is the most difficult way.
Sometimes it is a deep, dark, treacherous valley.
Notice what he said.
He said, valleys of shadow, death, fear, evil.
These things indicate something about the difficulty of
that valley.
Sometimes we're in the valley because God in
his wisdom chooses to lead us the most
difficult way to arrive at the destination for
which he wants us.
So when he says here that even though
we walk through the valley of the shadow
of death, even though we do it, and
I want you to remember also what he
says in this passage, and if you'll notice
two things here.
Sometimes what God says, what he doesn't say,
is as powerful as what he does say.
Look at that verse.
He does not say this.
He doesn't say, even though I may walk
through the valley.
Even though I might do it.
No.
Even though I walk, because friend, it is
inevitable.
Valley experiences are absolutely inevitable in the life
of every single person.
Notice something else he doesn't say.
He doesn't say, even though I run, rush
and hurry through the valley.
That's the way I like to get through
them.
I want to run through them quickly.
In fact, the truth is, I like to
put on my blindfold and just run through
it right quick and not hear anything, see
anything, and feel anything.
Just get through that guy.
Just get me through that guy.
But you know what he said?
Even though I, what?
Walk through the valley.
And I may not, not might, even though
I walk through the valley of the shadow
of death.
And so when he makes this statement, what
he's simply saying is this.
It's going to happen.
And I remember meeting a lady one time,
went to her home.
And her sister was there and her mother.
And she was dying of some disease.
I've forgotten exactly what it was.
I remember what she told me.
She said, you know, all of my life,
I thought everybody had it the way I
had it.
And she drove the finest automobile.
She had plenty of money.
Everything in the world anybody could ever imagine.
And here she was in her late 30s
dying.
And she died about two weeks later.
And she said, you know, I guess my
life was such that I just thought everybody
had it the way I had it.
No, they don't.
And what I've discovered is in the last
few weeks, there are more people hurting with
more pain and more suffering and more hurt
than I've ever discovered in my life.
Because all of a sudden when somebody feels
that somebody else is hurting, then they somehow
feel the freedom and the liberty to say,
you know, I'm hurting too and I want
to tell you about my hurt.
Well, these valley experiences are a part of
every single believer's life.
And there is no way to escape them.
Sometimes we try, but there's no way.
And so when he says, even though I
walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I will fear no evil, thou art
with me.
He is giving us the most important part
of this whole passage of scripture.
This is the most important part.
Because if you think about it for a
moment, he says, the Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
And he says he's going to take us
to green pastures, quiet waters, restore our soul
and guide us in the paths of righteousness.
But you know what?
Suppose you read that whole psalm and he
talks about preparing a table before us and
head being anointed with oil and cup running
over.
Suppose he left out this part, thou art
with me.
If he left out that part, the heart
and the core of this psalm would be
missing.
Because that's what this psalm is all about.
It is a psalm of comfort and of
assurance and of reminding of us that we're
going to go through those experiences of life
that are so difficult and painful and hard
that the only thing we have is God.
And so I just want to say to
you today that no matter what experience you're
going through, whatever it might be, ask yourself
the question, God, why am I here, number
one.
And secondly, Lord, what is your goal?
And so I want to say this two
or three times in this message.
If you think you're going through a valley
or you think you're just getting ready to
head into it, and sometimes you don't walk
into it, you drop into it.
You don't just sort of find your way
from the meadows and the mountains down to
the valley.
Suddenly you're from the mountain peak all the
way to the depths of the valley.
And what you have to ask is, Father,
what is your goal for this valley experience
in my life?
And, Father, how am I to respond to
this valley experience in my life?
Those are always the wise two questions to
ask.
Number one, Father, what is your goal?
And secondly, Lord, how am I to respond
to this valley experience?
So the first thing I want you to
notice here, and that is that valley experiences
are absolutely inevitable in the life of every
person.
It doesn't make any difference how old you
are, one of these days you're coming through
them.
It makes no difference how rich you are,
how poor, how educated or uneducated, where your
status is in life.
Valley experiences, difficulty, hardships, trials, suffering, pain, it
is always going to be times and seasons
in our life.
The second thing I want you to notice
that's very evident here, and that is this.
And that is that valley experiences are painful
times in our life.
Painful times in our life.
Look at this passage.
Look at the words in this verse.
He says, the shadow of death, fear, evil,
all of these indicate something is going on.
Now, these four words indicate something of the
nature of the valley.
Notice he said, green pastures, quiet waters, guided
paths, restored, refreshed souls.
And even though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death, I will fear
no evil.
You see, this isn't just some little pain
you get with a toothache or a bad
cold.
We're talking about intense kind of pain that
happens when a person goes through a valley.
Whatever the reason, it may be something of
your own doings, it may be something that
somebody else has caused, or it may be
that God has chosen to lead us through
that valley.
Whatever it might be, the pain is still
going to be there.
And so when I look at that and
think about the kind of pain we're talking
about here, and what he says, when he
speaks about valleys, that indicates something of a
shadow, something of uncertainty.
When he talks about death, something of destruction,
something that is threatening.
When he talks about fear, anxiety and dread,
and when he talks about evil, threatening, temptations,
all that go along with that, and there
are those periods and seasons of time, for
some reason, God may allow it, or it
is their own doing.
Here's what we have to think about.
We're not talking about little pains or little
hurts here and there.
We're talking about the kind of intense pain
that is indescribable.
We're talking about the kind of hurt that
you cannot describe to someone else.
We're talking about the kind of hopelessness and
helplessness that words cannot express.
Deep, dark valleys that he will oftentimes lead
us through.
So we're talking about a degree of distress
that is more than just a little distress.
A deep degree of tension, and feeling it
in your whole physical body as well as
your emotions, and your spirit, everything that gets
inside of you gets tested.
That is, there seems to be some kind
of awesome invasion of your innermost being, your
innermost spirit, the deepest part of you, and
when you weep, you don't weep from your
eyes, you weep from your spirit deep down
inside.
There is a pain that is indescribable in
some walks in the valley.
And so when he says, Yea, though I
walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, we're not talking about some little testing
of the faith that ends up today, and
it's just a matter of time, maybe a
few days, and it's all over.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death.
And the reason he put that word in
there is because he wanted to emphasize the
intensity of the pain and the alarming threat
that we face when we walk through that
valley.
Even though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death.
Now, there are a couple of things about
this valley I want us to look at.
First of all, I want to mention the
fact of the length of that valley.
Sometimes the valley is short, sometimes it's long.
For example, here's a person who goes to
the doctor and the doctor says, You have
a terminal illness.
And two weeks later or a month later,
they find out it was a wrong diagnosis.
And so that was a short-lived valley,
praise the Lord.
Or sometimes a person like the one I
mentioned a few moments ago, they lose their
job and they have no prospects for a
couple of weeks or three weeks, and it
looks like it's going to be a long,
drawn-out process, and out of the blue
somebody calls and says, I'm looking for somebody
who has your qualification, they're out of the
valley.
It would be great if all valleys were
that short, but they're not.
And sometimes the doctor says to a person,
You have cancer, and the type that you
have, there's no cure for it.
One month, two months, six months.
Nine months, one year.
Eighteen months, two years.
The hurt, the pain, the suffering, all the
anger that they go through, all the guilt,
all the anger toward God, all the emotions
that crop up in someone's life who goes
through that kind of awful experience, two years,
two and a half years, three years, their
family watches them die a day at a
time.
That isn't a short valley.
That's no painless valley.
That is a deep, dark, painful valley that
only a person who has been there understands.
And my friend, before you walk up to
someone else and say to them, Well, I'm
just praying for you and I understand.
Be sure you do understand where they are.
Because you see, I'm not sure anybody understands
where someone else is until they've been where
they are.
And even then, I want you to remember
something.
That God does not work in any two
people's lives the same way.
No two valleys are the same for anyone.
Their valleys are similar, but no two people's
valleys are the same.
And so when you and I want to
console someone, we have to be sure, when
we say, I know what you're going through,
I know how you feel, be sure you
know how they feel and what they're going
through because you've been there.
There are some valleys that are very long,
very painful, very dark, very treacherous, little hope.
There are some valleys that are short.
We would all like for them to be
short, but since we're not sovereign and God
is, he's the one who determines how long
and how short they are.
And what is it that determines how long
and how short they are?
First of all, his purpose for allowing us
to be in the valley, and secondly, our
response to being in the valley.
But there's a second thing about the valley,
not on the length of time, but the
second thing is the difference in the depth
of that valley.
Some valleys are very, very deep.
Listen to what he says.
Even though I walk to the valley of
the shadow of death, some valleys are very
deep and very dark.
Now, I've had the wonderful privilege of traveling
lots of places and not climbing to the
top of, but climbing up to a comfortable
place in enough mountains and to be able
to see at distances from the peaks of
some mountains.
I love the mountains and I love the
valleys.
Some valleys are beautiful.
Some valleys are very deep and some are
dark and treacherous.
And when we talk about the depth of
the valley, again it depends on what God
is up to in our life.
And when he talks about, Yea, though I
walk to the valley of the shadow of
death, that indicates that there are some valleys
that are very, very threatening to us, that
set off alarms in us.
Those valleys that we have to walk through
very, very carefully, that we make every step
the right step, that we have to have
wisdom, the wisdom of the Good Shepherd, to
guide us through it step by step.
Because on different occasions, people in valleys, traveling,
take the wrong step, fall, hurt themselves, and
sometimes break a leg or break an arm
or whatever it might be.
There are some valleys that are very dark
and very treacherous.
The same thing is true in the spiritual
walk.
There are some that are very dark and
very treacherous.
And we have to be extremely careful.
And I think all of us could probably
think about some valleys that we've been through,
difficult trying times, painful times in our life.
And as I thought about this week in
preparing this message, things in the past of
my life that I thought were dark valleys
and deep times of heartache and trouble and
trial and pain, then I thought about something
that I read some time ago, that someone
had written about the fact that the older
you get, that the older you become in
life and the longer you live, the more
difficult your trials become.
I remember thinking about that.
Well, it looks like to me, the longer
you live and the more faith that you
have, the simpler they ought to be.
And so, you know, there ought to be
some time out there where they don't get
quite as difficult.
And then I thought about it.
About eight months ago, my mom passed away,
and I watched her die a day at
a time, and I thought that was the
deepest, darkest valley that I'd probably ever go
in in my life.
Because I watched her day by day just
sort of dwindle away until finally the Lord
took her.
That was a very painful valley for me,
extremely painful.
I hurt, I wept, I cried, and I
cried, and I cried.
I hurt on the inside, I hurt on
the outside.
And no matter what anyone said to me,
only God could comfort me, and at times
that was very difficult.
And then, a few weeks ago, I stepped
into another valley.
And I want to tell you, my friend,
there is no pain and no hurt.
There is no pain and no hurt to
equal this valley.
There is no intensity of pain that I
could ever describe that can describe the pain
when you are torn away from something that
you love very, very dearly, someone that you
love with all of your heart.
There is no way to describe the intensity
of that pain.
And so, when somebody talks about, I understand
how you feel, I'm not sure any of
us can fully understand how anybody else feels
in certain valley experiences, because they're all different.
And all of our circumstances are different.
But he says, Yea, though I walk through
the valley of the shadow of death, because
there are some things in this life that
are far worse than physical death.
And that is emotional pain.
It wrenches you and tears at you and
almost destroys everything inside of you.
There is a pain more intense than I
can describe.
I thought I knew what pain was like,
but I'm sure that I didn't.
And therefore, I would not say even now
that I know what it's like, because there
must be some pain even greater than that.
I don't know what it is.
May God spare me of it, at least
for a while.
And I think about, he says, The Lord
is my shepherd, I shall not want.
Well, I have to ask myself the question,
Lord, if you're my shepherd, why would you
lead me through this valley?
And yet I know that he's an omniscient
shepherd all wise.
And he always does the right thing.
What he said in Romans 8, 28 is
always true.
That our God is engineering our circumstances and
directing our paths in such a way that
it will bring honor and glory to his
name upon two conditions, which I'll come to
later.
And so, one thing I know for sure
about the valley, that because he said, Thou
art with me, this much I know, there
is always a limitation on the depth of
that valley.
And this is why, I think what the
old gentleman said when he said that our
valleys oftentimes get deeper, he didn't put it
in those words, that's what he meant, is
because when you and I are 21, we
can handle a sort of a shallow valley.
When we're 41, we can go a little
deeper.
When we're 61, we can go a lot
deeper.
And since I'm not 81 yet, I don't
know how deep it can get in the
80s, but I can imagine it could get
extremely deep.
And dark, and treacherous, and lonely, and hard,
and painful, and indescribable.
But this much I know, there is a
limit.
And the same Jesus who said, I am
the good shepherd, and I love the sheep,
and the sheep know me, and I know
them, and they follow me.
The same one who said, My sheep hear
my voice, and I know them, and they
follow me, and I give them an eternal
life, and they shall never perish.
Neither shall anyone pluck them out of my
hand.
The Father and I are one.
This much I know, that in the valley,
no matter how treacherous, and painful, and difficult,
nobody can take your hand out of the
hand of the good shepherd.
Because you see, in the valley, you're not
holding on to him for dear life.
The good shepherd has taken us by the
hand.
And it doesn't make any difference.
It doesn't make any difference if I let
go.
Thank God he never lets go.
It doesn't make any difference how dark it
is, how fearful it is, whatever alarms set
off in your soul, how absolutely intense the
pain, and how much the tears.
He never lets go.
He says, Thou art with me, thy rod
and thy staff accompany me.
What a wonderful phrase in that psalm.
Without it, it wouldn't be anything.
With it, it's everything.
So when we think about the depth of
it, it doesn't make any difference how deep
it is, as long as I walk through
it, hand in hand, with the good shepherd,
who is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Why is that?
Why do I not need to be afraid?
For this reason.
If you'll turn to John 10, he said
it better than I could.
John 10 is the passage of scripture that
is the good shepherd discourse about Christ.
Listen to what he says in this 10th
chapter.
And this is why when he says, Yea,
though I walk through the valley, the shadow
of death, I will fear no evil.
Why?
Here's the reason.
Because the good shepherd, who is walking with
us, said this.
Verse 11, I am the good shepherd, the
good shepherd lays down his life for the
sheep.
Verse 14, I am the good shepherd, and
I know my own, and my own know
me.
And verse 27, as we quoted, My sheep
hear my voice, I know them, and they
follow me.
And I give eternal life to them, and
they shall never perish, and no one shall
snatch them out of my hand.
My Father, who has given them to me,
is greater than all, and no one is
able to snatch them out of my Father's
hand.
The Father and I are one.
Do you know why you and I can
walk through the valley without fear?
Because this I know.
If Jesus Christ loves me enough and loves
you enough to lay down his life at
the cross 2,000 years ago, that was
the ultimate test of his love.
And if he laid down his life 2
,000 years ago, I don't have to worry
about him holding my hand all the way
through the valley.
So he says, Yea, though I walk through
the valley of the shadow of death, I
will fear no evil, for thou art with
me.
Now, the valley experience as he describes it
here, one thing is so evident is that
the good shepherd is watching over us and
caring for us all the way through that
walk.
Sometimes that walk is probably very slow because
it is treacherous.
Sometimes that walk may not be quite so
slow.
It depends on what his purpose is and
what he's trying to achieve in our life.
But he's the one who's overseeing it, and
he's the one who has said the key
statement, Thou art with me, thy rod and
thy staff, they comfort me.
Because the sheep are seeing the rod to
beat off the wild animals, the staff or
the cook to reach out and pull the
sheep back when he's getting too close to
the edge.
All that's symbolical of his caring.
Now, the question comes, how do we oftentimes
respond and what is our reaction when we
get in the valley?
And people respond in different ways.
And so you must not ever judge somebody
else's response because, first of all, you don't
know the intensity of their pain.
Second, you don't know what God's purpose is
in their life.
And so oftentimes, we're quick to judge someone
else's response to the valley and how they're
going through that valley and what's happening to
them.
And most everybody has advice for anybody who's
hurting about anything.
And everybody's got advice, well, I do this
and I do that and you ought to
do this and you ought to do that.
And the thing you have to listen to
is what God is saying and what does
God want you to do.
And so here's what happens.
Here's how people respond.
Sometimes they respond in panic.
Oh, my God, what shall I do?
Now, I want you to listen carefully to
what I'm going to say because I'm going
to say one of the most important parts
of this message in a moment.
Sometimes people respond in panic.
Sometimes they're overwhelmed with fear and uncertainty and
discouragement and despair.
And sometimes people come to the place of
committing suicide.
We get lots of letters from people who
are about to commit suicide and they listen
to the program and God speaks to their
heart and changes their mind.
One of the reasons I don't read very
many of those is because of the impact
that it has upon people.
Oftentimes they will say, Now, I want to
be sure you did say that I can
be forgiven.
Well, you can be forgiven indeed, but my
friend, you short-circuit your life, you lose
your reward, and the tragedy of suicide, you
do not want to experience the ultimate of
that tragedy.
And there are many people who come to
Valley Experiences and when they get to some
point in the valley and they look back
and they don't see a way out, and
they look ahead and they don't see any
way out, and they don't have the wisdom
to know if they're a believer that Jesus
Christ is holding their hand all the way
through that valley.
Think about the unbeliever who is in the
Valley Experiences of life and no God, no
shepherd.
What in this world do you do in
the deepest, darkest valley when there is divorce,
when there is separation, when there is the
loss of a child, when there is an
accident and there is sudden death?
What happens when you suddenly find yourself in
the valley and you don't have a shepherd?
No one to hold your hand, no one
to look to, no one to listen to
your prayers, no one to call upon, no
one you can be certain about, no one
that you know who genuinely and truly loves
you enough to have laid down his life
already.
What do those people do?
They run to every human thing possible trying
to get something to quieten that inner turmoil,
silence the shout and the alarm of their
pain, something that will so fog their mind
and cloud their thinking that they don't have
to think where they are and what they
have to face.
That's what they do.
Listen to what he says.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not
want.
Listen, the same shepherd that leads us in
the valleys, the same shepherd is the one
who leads us in the mountainsides, whether it's
still water in the creeks, in the streams,
good grass, place to rest, refreshment time, he's
the same one.
But if you don't have him and you
don't know him, what do you do?
There's panic, there's turmoil, there's strife, there's the
threat of suicide ending it all, despair, disillusionment,
hopelessness, helplessness, and all kinds of responses, not
a single one of which is the right
one.
Now, what I want to share with you
at this point is very, very important.
You hear me say to you oftentimes if
you're going to come to church and you're
going to spend 35, 45, 50 minutes listening
to a sermon, it is foolish to sit
here and spend that much time listening to
a sermon and walk away with nothing to
carry with you.
You're not going to come to this place
and listen to 45 minutes of a message
without something that will not enrich your soul,
deepen your relationship to God, and challenge you,
that much I know.
But whether you carry it away with you
or not is something else.
And this is why I say if a
message is worth listening to, it's worth writing
down those areas of the message that relate
to your life or something that relates to
someone else or something that you feel you
may need.
Let me give you an example.
You know why people panic in the valley?
Here's the reason.
The reason people panic in the valley and
the reason they just lose it all is
because they walk into these deep, dark, valley
experiences of life with no basic biblical theology.
All of their Christian experience is hype-hype,
praising the Lord and it's all emotion.
If I feel Him, He's there.
If I don't feel Him, He's not there.
And it's praising the Lord for this and
praising the Lord for that.
I'm for praising God.
I believe in worshiping Him and praising Him.
Indeed, I do.
But my friends, if your Christian life is
only a matter of emotion and you listen
to sermons and you just walk away hoping
you'll remember something, maybe, the messages only make
you feel good.
They don't challenge you.
They don't enrich your mind, challenge your mind
and make you think and cause you to
want to apply those truths to yourself.
And you take the time to write them
down and to be able to apply them
to your life and look for those experiences
in life that will help you apply those
principles.
I can tell you, when the valley experience
comes and you don't have a basic theology
to live by, you're going to panic.
You're going to look to the world to
find something.
Listen, here's what you're going to do.
More than likely, you're going to find unwise,
ungodly counsel and what that's only going to
do is deepen your valley and prolong your
walk in that valley.
And that's why it's so very important you
jot down the principles.
You write down those things that have meaning,
that these experiences are inevitable in every person's
life and why we get in the valleys
and how we respond and how we should
not respond because we're all going to be
there.
And so when he says, Yea, though I
walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I will fear no evil.
Why?
Because the psalmist knew God.
Now, you see, if I'm going to respond
right in the valleys, I need to know
him.
If I don't know God, I'm not going
to respond right.
If I know him, that means I understand
something of his ways, how does God operate,
something of his principles, here are the things
that guide us in our Christian walk, something
of his promises, and not just know them
something as far as something being able to
quote, but know them and experience.
How is it that the truths of God
become a part of our very being?
Not listening to sermons.
That becomes a part of my mind.
The truths and the principles and the ways
of God become a part of my life.
When do they become a part of my
life?
Here's when they become a part of my
life.
When God allows me or thrusts me into
the valley.
Then I have to draw from what I
know.
Then I have to apply what I've heard.
Then I have to test what I believe.
Then I have to put that blowtorch to
the very basic things that have brought me
thus far in my life.
And what happens?
When you have a basic theology, when you
have an understanding of God, when you believe
his scriptures, when you know the promises, when
you understand the principles, then in that valley,
I'm telling you friend, everything you believe is
going to get tested one way or the
other.
And if your beliefs have never been tested
then more than likely you don't have much
belief.
If you don't have a basic belief system
that can stand the test, and stand the
pressure, and stand the pain, and stand the
turmoil, and stand the criticism, and stand the
persecution, then my friend, there's something missing in
your spiritual walk.
It is walking to the valley with a
basic biblical theology.
What I believe based upon what the word
of God teaches.
What the word of God says.
The principles, the promises that fill this book
from one end to the other.
That's why a light, fluffy relationship to God
won't work.
It may work all right as long as
everything is going your way, but when you
get in the valley, and the intensity of
the pain is such that you cannot handle
it, and the hopelessness and the helplessness is
so absolutely overwhelming, and the days are dark,
and there seems to be absolutely nothing at
the other end, and you can't go back,
you'd better have a belief system that's tested
and tried.
That's why, it's what God does.
That's the reason he gives us shallow valleys
when we know a little bit.
And deeper valleys when he's taught us more.
But listen to me carefully.
If you've had the privilege, if you've had
the privilege of knowing more back here, but
you ignored it, and knowing more here, and
you weren't interested, and having the truths that
I know that you've had, and you've paid
a little heed to it, my friend, the
valleys are going to get deeper and deeper.
Listen to me carefully.
They're going to get deeper and deeper, no
matter whether you take the time to apply
the principles, or you don't.
The difference is that those who have a
biblical theology are sustained, and those who don't
are not.
And that's why it's so very important that
you and I understand this book, and we
understand the word, because no matter what you
and I face, there are people in the
word of God who've been there.
And you can start off whether it's Abraham,
or Joseph, or David, Moses, they've all had
those long valley experiences.
Moses, 40 years on the backside of the
desert in the valley.
But they understood who God was.
Now, Moses had to learn the hard way,
and that's why God kept him 40 years,
until he absolutely ripped everything out of him,
said he had nothing, here he was, a
smelly shepherd.
And then God spoke to him again.
But he had all those past failures in
his life to go back to.
And God reminded him that he's God, and
Moses, you're not.
I don't know where you may be in
the valley, but I can tell you this.
My friends, the wisest thing you can do
if you get into this book, read it,
pray over it, listen to the messages of
God's servants, as long as they're sticking with
the book.
Listen to the messages of God's servants.
Write down the truth.
Apply them to your heart.
Look at how they're being applied in other
people's lives.
Look at the consequences of disobedience.
Those are the things that establish you, so
that when you get in the valley, the
Lord Jesus Christ, who holds you, holds your
hand every step of the way, will keep
reminding you, because you remember what he says?
He says he sent the Holy Spirit and
all of that.
He may bring to our remembrance those things
that he wants us to remember, that you
and I can apply to our hearts those
basic truths that anchor us and steady us,
and keep us firm and solid and stable
in the most difficult trying times of our
Christian walk.
Well, there's a third thing that I want
you to notice here about these valley experiences.
First of all, we said they're absolutely essential.
They're going to be a part of our
life.
They're inevitable.
Secondly, they're painful.
And thirdly, they are profitable.
Valley experiences are profitable in our life.
Now, that doesn't mean that because they're profitable,
there's not going to be any pain.
Yes, there will be pain.
Even though they're profitable, the pain and the
degree of pain may be the same.
But they're profitable for a couple of reasons.
First of all, they're times of discovery for
us.
Discovery of what?
We discover what God is like in the
valley in a way that we will never
discover on the mountain peak.
There are things about God.
There are aspects of God.
There are ways of God that you and
I will discover in the deepest, darkest, treacherous,
most painful valley experiences we will never even
get a glimpse of on the mountain peak.
That's just the way life is.
And God reveals himself in the valley in
a way that he does not reveal himself
on the mountain peak.
So we're going to get a glimpse of
God.
We're going to see him in ways that
we would not see him otherwise.
Also, as I think about what we discover
about God, we discover an intimacy and a
sense of quietness.
He says that he will lead us into
places of rest.
Listen to me carefully.
In the deepest, darkest, blackest moment of your
valley experience, there can be the most overwhelming,
indescribable sense of peace and rest and quietness
and confidence that only hand in hand with
the Son of God could you ever experience.
The Lord is my shepherd.
I shall not want for peace and quietness
and tranquility even when the darkest, the deepest,
and the most painful walk is a part
of your experience.
And so he says here, we're going to
discover something.
Notice he says, he says, Thou preparest a
table before me in the presence of mine
enemies, anointing my head with oil.
He's talking here about providing our needs in
the darkest, deepest, most painful part of the
valley experience.
And speaking of oil, for example, the shepherd
would take oil and rub it on those
skinned places where the sheep injured themselves.
And he's simply saying that he's going to
be our comforter.
He's going to be our healer.
And the healing process, listen carefully, when you
get in the valley, when you and I
begin to respond correctly, the healing process begins
even in the most intense pain.
The healing begins even then.
God doesn't wait.
He doesn't wait to start the healing process
when we're out on the mountain peaks somewhere.
That's not the way God operates.
And so he says, he anoints us with
oil, our cup runs over, he is providing
every single thing that we need.
We discover something about ourselves.
Not only about God, and there's a million
things about God you've not discovered, but we
discover something about ourselves.
Now listen, it's real easy to sit in
church or sit at home and everything's going
your way and say, I believe in God.
Yes, indeed I do.
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine.
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine.
Hallelujah, amazing grace.
I believe all those songs.
I believe the Bible from cover to cover.
Well, fine.
Now let me ask you this.
When the pain hits and the hopelessness is
overwhelming, then what do you believe?
You see, we discover things about ourselves in
the deepest, darkest, valid experiences.
We discover how much real courage we have.
We discover the degree of our faith.
We discover the level of our faith.
We discover if our self-image is based
on him or on somebody else or what
other people think.
We discover the true nature of our character.
We discover whether we can really endure or
not.
We discover what the real character is really
about.
When we go through those things that cause
us to be absolutely helpless and we can
do nothing about and all we can do
is depend upon God, we discover things about
ourselves.
And maybe some of those things we oftentimes
boast about when the pain becomes intense enough,
all of a sudden there is no boasting.
And what we discover, we discover what our
real value system in life is all about.
We discover what the real priorities in life
are about.
And what happens, listen carefully, this is so
important.
You see, here's the reason we make such
tremendous discoveries in the deepest, darkest valleys of
pain.
Here's the reason.
Because God has a way of increasing the
pain level to the point that it is
so painful nothing else in life matters.
Nothing matters.
Absolutely nothing matters.
You see, God knows how to wrench from
us everything we depend upon.
And that's really what he's up to in
the valley of experience.
And ultimately this is his purpose.
His ultimate purpose is to do what?
To wrench from us emotionally, or physically, or
materially, every single solitary thing so that Jesus
Christ has no competition as Lord in our
life.
There are no challenges to his rule and
to his reign and his Lordship in our
life.
And so what does he do?
He just strips us of everything that we
cling to, that we lean upon.
And he has a very painful way of
doing that.
I know that.
I'm not blaming all pain on God.
I'm simply saying there are some things he
allows and some things he initiates.
Whether he allows them or whether he initiates
them, it doesn't make any difference.
God's ultimate goal.
I think about people who are so extremely
wealthy and their whole life is wrapped up
in money.
That's what they talk about.
That is the subject of their conversation.
They begin their conversations there.
It's the only thing that matters in life.
I tell you, my friend, the valley experience
will come because God is not going to
allow his children to cling to, depend upon,
rely upon, be wrapped up in, soaked up
in, absolutely overwhelmed by, and allow things to
become gods in their life.
So what does he do?
He throws us into the valley experience to
wrench from us, tear from us, every single
solitary thing that challenges his place of preeminence
in our life.
And sometimes those are things that we wouldn't
even think of as being a challenge to
God.
But you see, and this is difficult for
us to understand, he wants us to lean
on nothing but himself, no one but himself.
We are sons and daughters of God walking
through valley experiences, learning to rely upon him
and him only.
And so what does he do?
He removes every single solitary thing but himself.
And while that is painful and difficult for
us, it ends up being glorifying to God.
Because it forces us to himself, and we
learn things about ourselves, we will not learn
any other way.
And he brings us to a sense of
dependence upon him, and that's why when we
come through that painful period, and we realize
that he is it, and he is only
it, and there is no other it but
him, then what happens?
Even in the valley, tranquility, calmness, quietness of
spirit.
So, there are discoveries, discoveries about God, about
ourselves, and discoveries about God's purpose in that
life.
Some of us know what God's purpose in
our life is, and some people do not.
And it's interesting to me how many young
men who have come to our fellowship, students
at Georgia Tech, they came to school, their
parents played their way, they were going to
be engineers, administrators, and you name it, all
of these things, and then something happens in
their life, bottom drops out, they get thrust
into the valley, and what happens?
It's in the valley when God begins to
tear them loose from everything, whatever is going
on in their life.
It isn't always the valley.
It isn't a valley, for example, that God
necessarily institutes or initiates, but it is a
valley.
Sometimes it's the divorce of their parents.
Sometimes it is a financial collapse and their
parents can't pay their way through anymore.
Sometimes it's difficult and hardship that they are
going through, whatever it may be.
And then they come to say, I don't
know what God's doing in my life, and
ultimately through this deep, dark, treacherous valley, you
know what their conclusion is?
God's been calling me to preach, and I
resisted it because I wanted to go out
there and make a lot of money and
told God, give a lot of money to
the missionaries.
That is the devil's lie.
How many people he's told that one to?
I'll give a lot of money to the
mission workers.
If you'll just help me make millions of
dollars, I'll give it all to you.
I'm here to tell you, if all the
people who have ever said that and made
their missions and gave it to God, we'd
have money running over and trying to figure
out what in the world to do with
it, because that's not true, and God doesn't
fall for that lie at all.
But how many of those young men in
the ministry today on the mission feel why?
Because God sent them in the valley, and
it was in the valley when he stripped
everything and all hope away from everything that
he got their attention.
And they could say, Oh, is that what
you've been calling me to do, God?
Yes, yes, I do see that.
And sometimes in that valley experience, he simply
affirms his purpose in your life, and what
happens is that God just enriches you and
deepens you and strengthens you and makes what
you've been doing a reality.
But let me say one other thing.
That it is not only a time of
discovery, it is a time of preparation.
Now, preparation isn't easy.
Think about this.
He puts us in the valley, and remember
this.
God never, listen, he never allows us to
go to the valley, or never initiates the
valley experience unless he has a purpose in
mind.
On the other side of that valley, God
has a work, has a purpose, has a
plan.
That's why the valley is never a destination.
Not in the valley, not walking around in
it, but through the valley.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death, I will feel no
evil.
Not in it, but through it.
He has a purpose in mind.
Now, what is he doing in the valley?
He's preparing us for the purpose, whatever it
is.
So what does he do?
He uses those tools we don't like.
For example, sometimes it is humiliation, sometimes, as
he says, it is refinement, cleansing, purifying, renewing.
In the valley experience, all the pain and
all the hurt we feel have an overwhelming,
awesome, glorifying, divine purpose behind it all.
That's why, I'm going to come to the
last point in just a moment, that's why
the next point is so very, absolutely essential.
Because whatever his purpose is and whatever he
is allowing to go on, what makes my
valley experience profitable, or a great time of
painful loss, is how I respond.
Now listen, there are two ways to respond.
Negatively, we either get thrust in the valley
or we get in there because of our
own circumstances.
We are in the valley.
How do I respond?
Rebel against God.
God, why did you allow this in my
life?
Look for a way out.
Try to find some little offshoot of the
path up some creek in some little slight
valley thinking there may be a way out
of the valley.
So we rebel.
We want to run away.
We want to blame somebody else for being
in the valley.
Blaming others is always a sign of our
spiritual immaturity.
It doesn't make any difference what happens, how
we get there.
Ultimately, God allows us to be in the
valley.
And so we complain, we have pity parties,
we moan and we groan and we blame
God, we blame other people, and my friend,
as long as you are doing that, guess
what's happening.
You know what it's like?
It's like God just stops you at the
end of the valley.
He's still got you by the hand, but
he just stops, or he slows down the
pace.
You know why?
Because he's refining and purifying and cleansing and
building character and changing and altering and doing
what?
Preparing us for what he has in mind.
What's the proper response?
I said it once before on purpose, and
I'm going to say it at the end
of this message.
Here's the proper response.
It doesn't make any difference what the nature
of the valley is.
It doesn't make any difference how short or
how long it is.
It doesn't make any difference how painful and
treacherous it is.
It doesn't make any difference how dark and
hopeless and helpless it may be.
Here's always the right response.
Father, what is your goal for my life
in this experience?
Secondly, Father, how do you want me to
respond in this experience?
Father, all that I am, I lay down
before you with no reservations, no restrictions.
I am solely your property.
And fourthly, Father, all that I have is
yours.
I open my hands.
You can take any and all of it.
It is all yours.
And my friend, when you and I get
in the valley, and that is our response,
Almighty God, in all of his sovereign wisdom
and love will guide us every step of
the way through that valley.
And secondly, Father, The pain may be almost
unbearable, but the glory on the other side
will make that pain disappear.
Now you say, well, and I saw this
happen a week or so ago, sometimes people
are going through pain and they think when
somebody describes it, what do they know about
it?
But my friend, none of us know how
anyone else hurts.
That's not even the issue.
The issue is what is the proper response.
What is your goal?
How would you have me respond?
Here am I, and here is all that
I have.
God will honor that every single time.
And Father, we love you for this wonderful
passage of Scripture, so simple, but so descriptive,
so comforting and so reassuring.
And I ask you, Father, with all of
my heart, for all the hurting people who
are going to hear this message, I pray
the Spirit of God would write etched indelibly
upon their hearts that when you said you
would be with us, you meant it every
step of the way.
And that you would work good out of
all of our pain, all of our hurt,
all of our suffering, that you would accomplish
your purpose, your way, and your will.
And so, Father, we just want to rest
in that today and thank you that you
are the author of this Savior, adequate for
every experience we face in life.
And we thank you for it in Jesus'
name.
Amen.
You've been listening to the teaching ministry of
Dr. Charles Stanley, speaker on the In Touch
television and radio broadcasts.
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