Psalm 23, please.
And I'm gonna take 10, 20 minutes to
allow lots of time for others.
Psalm 23, the 23rd Psalm.
I'm sure it's familiar to many, probably memorized.
It's read by many today, I'm sure, but
it's nice to be able to read it
with intelligence, knowing that the Lord definitely is
our shepherd.
A few thoughts that I have enjoyed over
the past year on Psalm 23.
We'll read at verse number one.
A Psalm of David.
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 my 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.
Wonderful words.
They're very powerful, they're only six verses, but
there's much in that little psalm.
The Lord was very kind during my sickness
to use this to encourage me greatly, and
it's wonderful when you go through a trial
that God gives you something from the word
of God that is able to put your
eyes back on him and get them off
of your circumstances.
Just for those that like to do a
little bit of a study, it's interesting that
in the Hebrew language there's only 55 Hebrew
words in this psalm.
That means you've got a middle word, and
that middle word is in verse four, and
if you have a Newberry Bible, it's the
one that is emphasized, thou, for thou art
with me.
So right in the center of these six
verses, God is the center.
Now, if you go and look at the
very first part of the psalm, the Lord,
and actually you have to read the title,
you count three words in.
Our psalm is one word, of David, second
word, the Lord.
The third word.
You come to the end of the psalm
and count three words back from the end.
Ever, one, four, two, the Lord.
So isn't it something how the spirit of
God has structured the psalm?
Right at the beginning, Lord, right at the
end, Lord, and right in the middle, thou.
Very interesting that it doesn't say God is
my shepherd.
The Lord is my shepherd.
You'll notice in our English Bibles the translators
used a nice little code.
If you see Lord in all capital letters,
that's really your Hebrew word, Jehovah.
If you see God in all capital letters,
that's the Hebrew word, Jehovah.
So maybe someone's sitting here today wondering, well,
what's the big deal about Jehovah?
Well, Jehovah is the covenant-keeping God.
The promises that he has stated, he will
follow through with his promises.
You and I look at time very differently
from God does.
We always talk about the past, the present,
and the future.
But if you did a little study on
the word Jehovah, it brings the three Hebrew
verbs, and it's the complete opposite of the
way we think.
It starts out with the future, then it
goes to the present, and then it deals
with the past.
So really what the word Jehovah is telling
me is that in my future, God has
promised to be there.
And that's linked with his covenants.
Only one who controls time, who is over
time, can actually make a promise and guarantee
that he will follow through with it.
So I like to think that Harold Paisley
is right when he makes the comment that
this psalm was probably written at the end
of David's life.
I think that's kind of nice.
I enjoy this thought from that.
You think of all the different words, the
pictures that David, through the spirit of God,
would use in relaying God to us, a
fortress, a mighty tower, my rock, and all
those sort of different pictures that you can
think of.
Isn't it lovely if the case is, he
wrote this at the end of his life,
he picked, the Lord is my shepherd.
There's something very tender, very personal about having
that relationship.
Pretty hard to have a relationship with a
rock or a raging waterfall, but there's something
about a shepherd, something alive about it.
Now, when you look at this psalm, there's,
for those that want to get a little
technical, there's 14 verbs in the six verses.
But, and they fall into three different groups.
But I'm only going to pick up on
two.
If you look at verse number one, and
verse number five, there's only two participle.
That means something that ends in an ing,
okay?
It's something that's ongoing.
So the very first one is this.
The Lord is my shepherd.
That sounds like a noun when we read
it, but it's actually a verb.
So really, we could read it this way.
The Lord is my shepherding one.
That's always ongoing.
Look at the next ing.
It's down in verse five.
In the presence of mine enemies.
That's a verb ending in ing.
So isn't it interesting just how the psalm,
just looking at its structure, I start out
with the active work of the shepherd.
And in contrast to that is the active
work of our enemies.
I'm glad that it's not the other way
around.
It's the shepherding working first before the enemies
are working.
It's a wonderful person to know, isn't it?
Our savior.
He's always on our side.
Now, it's amazing how it starts off.
Look at how he ends the first phrase.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not
want.
That's inward, inward contentment.
I shall not want.
Look how he ends in verse number five.
My cup runneth over.
That's the exterior.
Now you and I will normally reverse that,
don't we?
When we start to get our eyes off
of God and we start to get our
eyes on our blessings, that is a recipe
for disaster.
You see, last weekend we were studying Genesis
22, Abraham and Isaac.
And isn't it interesting that Abraham didn't get
occupied with the blessing, the son.
He was always occupied with the blesser.
So when it came time to offer up
the blessing, he didn't crumble to the ground
because he still had his eyes on the
blesser.
And he knew with his confidence in the
blesser that even if the blessing was to
pass into death, the blesser would bring him
back out of death.
So you can see, even for our own
benefit, dear child of God, always try to
keep your eyes upon God.
Because God, as I mentioned yesterday, God will
test our faith.
We will be brought into circumstances that we
might not deem are a blessing.
But never forget, the Lord is my shepherding
one.
Now notice what it says.
I think David is reflecting on a long
life of God dealing with him.
Look what he says, he maketh me to
lie down in green pastures.
You know, ever sometimes try to train a
dog and you got him on the leash
and you're saying, sit, he's not sitting.
So you put your hand on his behind
and you kind of try to push him
down when you say, sit.
And you can feel the strength as he's
fighting against your hand.
You ever experienced that?
I had to discover that I was doing
that to God.
God was wanting me to sit, but I
didn't want to sit.
God, there's something not right.
This sickness that has come into my life,
it's really derailed meetings.
I mean, it just doesn't seem to make
sense.
I don't want to sit.
But look what it says, the Lord is
my shepherd.
He knows what's best.
And you know, I was mentioning this to
the young people there last night.
You'll never find this picture where you're driving
down a nice country road and there's a
field full of sheep and there is a
shepherd on his elbow looking into the eyes
of the lamb, asking him, now what would
you like to do today?
What field would you like to graze in
today?
That's just not the way it works.
But isn't it something?
Did you ever find yourself, have you ever
discovered in your heart that you think you
know better how to run your life than
God?
You ever think like that?
Well, I do.
I have to confess it as sin.
And there are times, there are circumstances when
I am brought into, that's really what's behind
the word meekness.
Meekness is not the idea of gentleness.
Meekness, Moses with the meekness, meekness is seeing
and understanding God in the circumstances.
So all of a sudden you're driving to
a meeting and you have a flat tire.
Don't get angry.
Don't try to blame your wife.
You ran over a nail.
See God in it.
There has to be something that God has
for me.
The next time there's a problem, you're faced
with a problem.
We're so quick to fly off the handle
and isn't there something in us?
It's the flesh, eh?
I remember Robert McFeet, a dear man that's
gone to heaven, a full-time preacher from
over the other country.
He said, children of the flesh are born
quick.
That was Abraham and Ishmael.
Children of the spirit take a while.
It's Abraham and Isaac.
And it's just built into us.
I think maybe it's the fact that I'm
47 going by middle age and maybe you
start to realize, wow, when you're young, you
got all kinds of strength and you just
feel like, I'll just grab that thing and
do it.
You know what I mean?
Sometimes God has to teach us things.
And you know what he has to do?
He has to take us and make us
lie down.
It says the green pastures.
I'm glad it doesn't say just pastures.
Do you know that little Hebrew word green?
It's just what you're seeing right there.
It's the tender, fresh shoot of grass.
A little kind of our God.
Wonderful to understand from this Bible that any
time with the Bible is not a waste
of time.
God has a pasture in this book that
will feed and nourish you.
Look what it says.
He maketh me to lie down in the
green pastures.
He leadeth me beside the still water.
It's not when you're ready to get up
out of the pasture.
He might lay you down for half a
year.
He might lay you down for a week.
He might lay you down for a couple
of years.
But the shepherd knows what he's doing.
And then it's time to come up and
it's time to go by not just water,
the still water.
The pool, the quiet little resting of the
water.
Now notice what comes next.
He restoreth my soul.
That's how he restores my soul.
The green grass and the still waters.
What is it?
What is it about us that we deny?
I really don't need restoring.
Do we not have that in us?
We all think that we're just on top,
we're on the top of our game.
Listen, we're never on the top of our
game.
There's always things that have to be, there's
always little tiny shoots, suckers.
You know, this time of year you're gonna,
you'll see the tree pruners and they'll be
watching for the little tiny shoots that grow
up wide.
They wanna cut them off to keep growth
up on the top part for the fruit.
I've got a wicked heart in here, dear
child of God.
Do you know what's always cropping up in
my mind?
There's these little suckers.
And the spirit of God, he's gotta nip
them.
I don't like that.
But the shepherd knows what is the best
for me.
So here's what, look at the progression.
He maketh me to lie down in green
pastures.
He leads me beside the still waters.
Here's the end result.
He restores my soul.
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness
for his namesake.
That comes after you're restored.
I'm sure every Christian here would, just would
love, you wanna live for God.
You wanna be able to do work for
God.
You can't do work for God in the
flesh.
Just from human effort.
It's he leadeth me.
He directs me into the right area to
bring glory to him.
But it's only after I've been restored.
So here we are today, and if I
was to ask a survey, how many people
would love to just serve their God?
All hands would go up.
You know what we have to experience first?
Laying down in the green pasture.
Walking by the still water.
He restores them in the proper condition.
Then I'm able to work for him.
Come a little further.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death, I will fear no
evil.
Why?
For thou art with me.
Do you find that as you do activity
for God, you can get away from God?
Does that sound like a contradiction?
You can get all taken up with activity
and your communion suffers?
Something that's been impressed upon me just the
last three or so weeks is being with
Murray and listen to him a few bit
of ministry.
Do you know, we hear this all the
time.
God saved us for what?
Worship.
But you know what I will put in
front of worship?
Activity.
Oh, we're all here to pass out tracts.
We're all here to pick up kids.
We're all here to go this and do
this and do this.
And then we all sit Sunday morning and
what happens?
Just a handful get up.
That is a very subtle trap of the
devil.
Paramount young men and young women, get it
into your minds.
God wants to hear your worship.
I don't understand that.
It's almost profound to think that a God
that knows everything.
But the spirit of God who God gave
me is in me to help me produce
worship.
And God wants that.
So that's what you discover when you find,
thou art with me.
Thy rod and thy staff, they come from
me.
You ever notice the difference between those two
things?
Thy rod and thy staff.
Now, if I was driving down the road
and I saw a shepherd, a sheepherder in
the field and he had two things in
his hand, at a distance I wouldn't know
which was the rod and which was the
staff.
You know what this sheep here discovered?
He found the difference when he was right
up beside the shepherd.
You know, isn't it something?
I find it hard to understand.
We all enjoy the tremendous truth of the
advocate, Jesus Christ, the righteous.
When I sin, an advocate is a person
that comes to your side and he puts
his arm around you, he comforts you and
he draws you back in.
My mind is in 1 John.
Do you not find it amazing, dear child
of God, that when I'm at my lowest
as a Christian, I have sinned willingly against
him?
Do you realize the only reason that I
acknowledge that sin?
He restored my soul.
That is a proof that the advocate is
doing his job and he has, how many
of us after we sin, we feel like
reading?
How many feel like praying?
Do you not feel ashamed?
You're just like, oh God, get away from
me, I'm embarrassed.
But the advocate, that's when he takes me
and he comforts me and he draws me
back in to himself.
What a tremendous shepherd we have, eh?
So keep on reading.
Thou preparest, notice this, this is beautiful.
Thou preparest a table before me in the
presence of mine enemies.
Did you notice what comes first?
Did you notice what's between you and the
enemy?
Thou preparest a table before me in the
presence of my enemies.
Isn't that wonderful?
So I often go back to my father,
when I was a young Christian, he always
used to give me just a little tiny
recipe.
He says, Scott, here is a victorious Christian
life.
You, God, and the problem.
Now he said, never allow the problem to
come in between you and your God.
Never view your God through the problem.
Always look at the problem through the eyes
of God.
That's what's illustrated right here.
You know the reason, you know the reason
why this shepherd took me into the green
pasture, took me by the still water, restored
my soul, and he's leading me?
He got me close to himself because I
can't handle the enemy without him, can't.
And not only is he with me, but
he's actually put right in front of me
the very nourishment I'll need to handle the
enemy.
Look at this, thou anointest my head with
oil.
You know, you go through the word of
God, you look up anointing.
It's anointing for service, it's the idea of
separating something or cleansing something.
I thought of it as the idea of
blessing.
It's in the presence of your enemies that
he anoints you.
You know what we have tucked in the
back of our mind?
Well, if I was up in a cabin
in the woods and I didn't have any
world to deal with, no flesh to deal
with, and I just had the Bible, oh,
I would just be going on, I'd be
a mighty person for God.
No, you wouldn't be.
God wants to use us in the presence
of the enemies, and God is the one
that anoints.
Finally, my cup runneth over, surely goodness and
mercy shall follow me all the days of
my life.
Not wonderful to know that.
As believers, constantly behind us, goodness and mercy,
with us, the shepherd, before us, the table.
I'll tell you what is a lovely devotional
thing if you ever wanna do it.
You contrast, with this I'll end, you contrast
Psalm 22 with Psalm 23, and just look
at the ultimate shepherd came to a point
where he had no shepherd.
The ultimate shepherd, he wasn't laying down in
green pasture.
He was brought into a wilderness.
Whereby the still water, he had no water.
Just go down and just look at the
contrast.
I think it's significant why the Spirit of
God has put those Psalms closely together.
And isn't it wonderful to know, I will
dwell forever in the house of the Lord.
May God encourage us with our shepherd.