words, I appreciate your kindness.
All I can think of as I look
back over the six months is all the
things that I'd intended to do and didn't
do.
So I'm glad you didn't know what I
intended to do.
But as I look back on life, too,
there are a lot of things I'd intended
to do.
As I look back in my study at
home, there are a lot of piles of
paper I'd intended to go through.
One of these days, maybe I won't and
somebody else will have to.
I don't know.
But anyway, there are a lot of things
that we try to do in life and
we're not able to.
But thank you.
You've been so wonderful and so encouraging and
you've been so grateful for any little thing.
It's just amazing.
I appreciate so much being with you all.
I had a sweater on tonight.
It was a little colder coming and here
I am.
I'm too hot to keep it on.
So, no, just leave it there.
So I hope you're not going to be
too warm.
If you are, just drop off to sleep.
Don't worry about it.
Probably this is my last night here.
At least I will be coming back probably
a couple of weeks from now when Doug
is preaching and just for one Sunday just
to be around.
But then it'll be the end of October.
So if you drop off, don't worry.
I'm not going to tell you off on
the last night.
But we've got a wonderful, wonderful psalm to
look at tonight and it's the last of
our evenings, Summer in the Psalms.
And you know, I'm amazed to see one,
two, three, four, five, six, seven in the
front row there.
I very much doubt whether your Bible falls
open to the Psalms, you know, because mine
didn't at that age.
And maybe you've read a few, I don't
know, but it's mainly the kind of passage
of Scripture that you get used to in
life as you go through life and you
come to feel the knocks and the hits
of life and you realize that this is
what life is about, what's in the Psalms.
So I hope what I'm going to do
today, and I'm so glad you're right there
in the front row, and I realize if
I don't keep your attention, oh, I thought
it was a skateboard, sorry.
That's just great indeed.
I thought you were going to get out
there quickly like that.
I'm glad you're there because I hope that
you will come to see, just like all
of us will, something tremendous in these Psalms.
We've done a number of them, I can't
remember the different ones, I know it's included
Psalm 19 and the Word of God, Psalm
131 and Contentment, Psalm 42 and 43, we
did at least four sessions on Psalm 139,
and tonight we're going to come to this
final one in Psalm 23.
Now if you don't have a Bible with
you, I am using the New International Version,
but you'll find that, apart I think you
may have the British one on your sheet
there, a couple little expressions that are different
on the sheet you've got, but you'll understand
as we get to it.
So would you like to look at it?
All I'm going to do tonight, if I
had decided what I was going to say
on this Psalm, I would have wanted to
include everything and we'd never got away from
here.
So what I've done is I've just saturated
myself with the Psalm and the author of
the Psalm and the one who inspired it,
the Lord himself by his Spirit.
And I'm saying, Lord, I don't know where
I'm going to go in this Psalm tonight,
but you decide what it is you want
me to share from this Psalm.
Because we're just going to go through it,
that's all I'm going to do, give you
the sense of it.
And as we do it, maybe you've got
a special need, which I wouldn't have planned,
but God will allow that to come to
my mind tonight.
So if you haven't got a Bible then,
by all means turn to the Psalm on
the back of your worship folder tonight, would
you?
And I'm going to read Psalm 23.
Let me read it two ways, and I'm
sure you'll understand why.
We've just been singing a lovely song, My
Lord and I, or what is it, The
Lord and I, or God and I, it
says on the top, but The Lord and
I.
This Psalm is all about the Lord, capital
L-O-R-D, and me.
It's all about how we're thrown together.
Let me read it the first way, listen
to this.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not
be in need of anything I want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside quiet waters.
He restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness for
his name's sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death, I will fear no
evil, for you are with me.
Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the
presence of mine enemies.
You anoint my head with oil, my cup
overflows.
Surely goodness and love will follow me all
the days of my life, and I will
dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
It's all about him.
But let me read it the other way
now.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not
be in want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside quiet waters.
He restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness for
his name's sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death, I will fear no
evil, for you are with me.
Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the
presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil, my cup
overflows.
Surely goodness and love will follow me all
the days of my life, and I will
dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Isn't that marvelous?
That's what this psalm is all about.
It's about a beautiful relationship, a relationship between
my God and myself.
And everything that happens in this psalm is
dependent entirely upon that relationship.
Nothing you can concoct yourself, no clever ways
I can think up that I could get
through all these problems.
No, it's all dependent on a relationship that
he is the shepherd and I am the
sheep.
And we've been thinking about that now for
a couple of weeks, and I don't think
we're going to go on to it after
tonight, but it's wonderful to think about this
lovely psalm in this great way indeed.
You know, there actually is a valley of
the shadow of death.
I've been thinking about it.
I don't know whether you know that, but
there is one.
And in fact it goes from, it's about
four and a half miles long, and it's
south, just south of the road from Jerusalem
to Jericho, Jerusalem to the Dead Sea.
And if you've been down that road, you
know the one we read about in Luke's
Gospel about the man that was robbed in
the Good Samaritan and so on, it's just
south of that road.
And this is a terribly dangerous valley.
It's the most dangerous valley that many, many
people, that many shepherds have ever seen.
In fact, most shepherds, they say this is
the most dangerous valley they'd seen.
And about every five or six years, Reader's
Digest reproduces an article that came out, I
think, during the Second World War, first of
all, and it reproduces telling you all about
this valley of the shadow of death.
Every shepherd from Spain to Dalmatia knows all
about this for hundreds of miles around.
And it's so dangerous and so narrow, in
fact at some points the walls are 1
,500 feet high.
And the distance across at the very bottom
may be no more than ten or twelve
feet sometimes.
And there are gullies even with that.
So you can imagine that the sun really,
even at midday, never gets down there.
And it's dangerous and it's filled with all
kinds of animal enemies and all kinds of
problems.
And in fact two flocks of sheep can't
pass one another in some of those places.
So as a result, there's an unwritten law.
The unwritten law is that the sheep, the
shepherd will take his sheep up the valley
in the morning and down the valley in
the evening so that two flocks won't have
to pass one another.
And sometimes those gullies are six, eight, ten
feet deep, you know.
Sometimes there's a drop across a gully, particularly
one part where you have to cross over
from one side to the other.
And as you cross over, you have to
drop down about eighteen inches and there's about
a seven or eight feet wide gully.
And the sheep stand on there and they've
got to get across.
I'm not sure how he does it, but
he does it in a marvelous way and
he just steers them across.
But it's a terribly dangerous place.
And in fact, if one owner of a
Christian bookstore told me some four or five
years ago that this psalm is so well
known that if somebody comes into the bookstore
and wants to buy a Bible, and they
certainly don't know much about Bibles, they say,
oh, I'd like to buy a Bible.
Well, which version would you want, man?
Oh, are there different versions?
I didn't know that.
Well, show me one and I'll sort it
out.
All right, so he says, now this is
a very good version.
And they look around for a little while
and they say, where is Psalm 23?
And so they find Psalm 23 and they
look at it and they read through it
until they come to that place that says,
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.
If that says the valley of the shadow
of death, they say, that's fine, I'll have
that Bible.
Why?
Because that's probably along with John 3.16,
the verse that is known best by people
who know maybe only very little of the
Bible.
But somehow or other, even though that thought
is there, and it's an important thought, this
expression, as we'll see when we get to
verse 4, includes far more than the valley
of the shadow of death.
It includes all of the valleys of life.
In fact, the literal translation of it, according
to most scholars, although some will say you
can just see that word death in there,
is, as you see in the footnote there,
if you've got an NIV, it says in
the bottom, underneath verse 4, if you look
down in the footnote, or, yea, though I
walk through the darkest valley, the expression is,
the deepest darkness, the darkest, the valley of
deepest darkness, and the valley of the greatest
crisis in life is death, and it's the
deepest and darkest perhaps in some cases, although
it's the one of the briefest.
There are other valleys that are much longer
than that, the valley of bereavement, the valley
of doubt and questioning, the valley of loneliness
that comes about after the valley of the
shadow of death, but frankly, that's the one
they want to use, they want to use
that verse and say that Bible must be
okay, so of course no translators would put
anything else other than that, because they wouldn't
sell their Bibles, but it includes more than
that, but listen, it includes that, and it's
absolutely there, and it speaks about it, something
that we can face, as Christians we can
face death.
You don't want to think about it when
you're your age, but frankly you do as
you get through life, you come to realize
this is life's greatest crisis, so what I'm
going to do is just go through it
as quickly as we can, and just give
a few brief thoughts on each one.
We'll just go through the verses, we'll just
milk the text, all right?
You milk it, and then you go back
tomorrow morning again, there'll be more there, more
milk again, ready to be milked.
But I want you to notice the kind
of way in which it's laid out.
Look at the expression in the first line,
the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not
be in want.
It doesn't mean you say I shall not
want, well, I won't want anything.
Of course you want things, you want all
kinds of things.
God isn't interested in what you want, he's
interested in what you need, and he knows
that he's only going to supply what you
need, because much of what we want, like
a motorbike at eight years of age, isn't
good for us.
So as a result of that, he says,
no, I know what you need, so I
hold back some of the things you want,
but I'm going to give you the absolute
essentials of life, so I won't be in
want of anything I need.
That's the idea, not the old English, I
won't want anything.
Now, what will we not be in want
of?
And the rest of the psalm tells us
that.
Look, verse 2, I'll not be in want,
verse 2a, I'll not be in want of
rest.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
Verse 2b, he leads me beside quiet waters,
I'll not be in want of refreshment.
Verse 3a, he restores my soul, I'll not
be in want of restoration when I need
that.
3b, he guides me in the paths of
righteousness, I'll not be in want of guidance.
Verse 4a, even though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, I'll fear
no evil for you are with me, I'll
not be in want of companionship.
Your Lord and your staff, they comfort me,
I'll not be in want of comfort.
Then verse 5, I'll, you prepare a table
before me in the presence of my enemies,
I'll not be in want of sustenance or
provision.
You anoint my head with oil, my cup
overflows, I'll not be in want of joy.
In fact, I'll not be in want of
anything, because if my cup overflows, there's more
there than I really need.
Not only that, but surely goodness and love
will follow me all the days of my
life.
I'll not be in need in this life,
I'll not want anything, I'll not be in
want in this life.
And I will dwell in the house of
the Lord forever, even though that means all
the days of this life is a parallel
thing, yet looking at it from a New
Testament, I'll not be in want eternally.
So right through this psalm you can see
that in want side, and he just takes
care.
It's only because Jesus is the companion, because
he is with me, because he's the shepherd,
because I'm the sheep that's waiting upon him
in every respect, that I can say, I
know I will not have need of any
of these things, because they'll be there, because
he's there.
Now having said that, there are many fine
scholars that look at this psalm, that look
at it in equally valid ways, and they
say, well it's not all about the shepherd
and the sheep.
They say, the first two verses are all
about the shepherd and the sheep.
The Lord's my shepherd, I'll not be in
want, he makes me lie down in green
pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he
restores my soul.
And they say that's all there is about
the shepherd and the sheep.
Then they say, because we need different analogues,
different analogies, in order to bring out all
the wonderful things about the relationship between my
Lord and I, he moves on to a
different motif then.
He starts talking about the traveler and the
guide.
Now he says, this isn't a sheep now,
this is a traveler and guide.
He guides me, still the same Lord, but
he guides me now as a traveler, they
say.
He guides me in the paths of righteousness,
all for his name's sake.
And even when I'm traveling, even though I
walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I'll fear no evil, for you are
with me, your rod and your staff, they
comfort me.
And they say in actual fact that there's
the traveler and the guide.
Then they say that the last two verses,
five and six, is in actual fact a
different motif again.
It's now to do with the host and
the guest.
Now you've arrived at your destination, or you've
come to a place where you're a stranger
and somebody's received you in like a good
Jew will.
And you prepare a table before me.
In the presence of my enemies, you anoint
my head with oil, my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy, or goodness and love,
will follow me all the days of my
life, and I will dwell in the house
of the Lord forever.
Now, I wouldn't quarrel with people that want
to break it up like that.
I still like to see it all as
the sheep, but that's fine.
I understand that too.
But I'm only going to cover, if I
can tonight, the first four verses, because we
won't possibly get through the rest of it.
And we know that most of the people,
most people who do divide it up, still
say the first four verses are to do
with the shepherd and the sheep.
When you get the rod and staff, it's
pretty hard perhaps to think of it as
traveler and guide, but anyway, that's the way
they are.
So let's have a look at this just
one by one.
The Lord is my shepherd.
There's the two thrown together.
Sometimes, you know, when we're in deep, deep
trouble, in the valleys of life, we need
to know victory in those valleys.
The thought is, if you can't think of
anything else, just think of the Lord on
one side, the shepherd on the other, and
then say, this Lord is capital L, capital
O, capital R, capital D.
This is the covenant God of Israel.
This is the name that God showed himself
as to his people.
This was that beautiful relationship with that deep,
wonderful love of God, that beautiful, beautiful chesed
love of God, which is the prime quality
of this God to his people.
And now this God is the one up
there, the creator of heaven and earth, the
Lord.
He's my shepherd.
And you throw those two things together, or
you say, he leadeth me, or he guides
me.
Always put those together and smile.
But the Lord is my shepherd.
I shall not be in want.
All right, let's have a look at what
we won't be in want of.
Firstly, we'll not be in want of rest.
Now, sheep need rest.
They often get up in Israel about 3
.30 or 4 in the morning.
They're eager to get going, as I indicated
this morning.
If they're going to get some good pasture,
then they need to start early, but also
to get a lot of moisture in even
the rougher pasture early in the morning, because
the dew is still on it.
And you know, it's not very generally known,
but a sheep can actually go a month
or more, two months maybe, without actually drinking.
Did you know that?
It can actually go a month or two
without drinking.
But only if they get up early in
the morning and they make sure that, of
course, they get all that good grass with
all the dew in it.
And of course, the two of them are
combined there.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
although he leads me beside quiet waters as
the actual drinking.
But let's look at the green pastures.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
You must know shepherds.
We have a very famous one that died
not too long ago, as you know, in
British Columbia, lived in Victoria over there with
us, just on the coast, and his name
was Philip Keller.
And you know, Philip Keller wrote those two
wonderful little books, A Shepherd Looks at Psalm
23, and then another one, A Shepherd Looks
at The Good Shepherd in John 10.
Two wonderful books.
You should get those.
Another excellent book to buy, by the way,
is F.B. Meyer's book, The Shepherd Psalm,
a little booklet just about as big as
that Paths to Power that you got from
Dr. Tozer's book some weeks ago, and which
will be available again with my own book
next Sunday, I believe.
So a little book like that is The
Shepherd Psalm by F.B. Meyer and Philip
Keller's book.
But Philip Keller says this, now he's pastured,
he looked after sheep, and pasturing sheep and
shepherding sheep, as we saw this morning, it's
the same word.
You're out to pasture, you're a pastor, you're
a shepherd.
It's all the same word.
That's what a pastor does, he shepherds.
But he says, if I'm going to get
my sheep to lie down in any kind
of field or anywhere when we're out, there've
got to be several things that must obtain,
things that must be in place or they
won't lie down.
And he says the first thing that must
be in place for a sheep to lie
down is there must be, must be free
from fear.
Fear particularly of other animals, or fear of
something that may be in the field, or
fear that the shepherd isn't around.
In fact, he says, if only the shepherd
walks into the field when the sheep are
fearful, you can sense this calming effect come
over the sheep.
But if there's fear there, if they know
they're in a place where they've previously seen
some animals, or if they're lying down there,
and suddenly they hear a jackrabbit just move
a twitch of muscle or something, and in
the undergrowth there, or the loose leaves perhaps,
suddenly one sheep will start off, and the
whole flock will start to go across the
field.
Because if they are fearful, they cannot lie
down.
They will not lie down.
They must be completely free from fear.
You and I, as we're Christians, as we
are sheep in the hands of our shepherd,
we completely trust him.
We know when he's in the field that
all is well.
We don't need to be fearful, because he
will have checked it out first to make
sure there's none of those wild animals around.
He'll walk around to make sure there's none
of the poisonous plants there on the field
that I'm going to eat.
I know I can feel safe.
There's no fear of eating the wrong thing,
and there's no fear of having someone attack
us.
And if he's in the field, and if
they do come and attack us, he's got
his club, and wow, he'll take care of
them all right.
As Christians, we know that we can't rest
when there's fear.
When we rest, it's because there's perfect love,
and perfect love casts out fear.
And so when we know our Lord, when
the shepherd becomes special to us, when in
our times of communion we get to know
him, and read the word, and draw from
all the things he has to give us,
that love deepens and deepens.
It becomes so enriching, and enlivening, and enriching
in our lives, that in actual fact, enriching
in our lives, that we will just not
have any fear, because that perfect love casts
out fear.
A sheep will not lie down, not only
when it's fearful, it must be free from
fear, but also secondly, it must be free
from tension.
If there's tension in the flock, the sheep
won't lie down.
If they're sort of, you know, what do
you call it, I guess you call a
pecking order, right?
With chickens, we call it a pecking order.
With cattle, I guess you call it a
horning order.
With sheep, you call it a butting order.
And they know exactly where they are.
Once they determine that butting order, in the
beginning of the day, they know they better
stick to it.
But sometimes, that old domineering old ewe that's
been around there for a long time, and
thinks she's got the run of the whole
place there, you know, she just, people don't
like her very much, those other sheep don't.
And they start to get fussy, and they
don't like this, and they start to compete.
They say, it's about time she gave up.
She's three years old now, you know, it's
about time she packed up.
And as a result, there's sometimes tension, and
there's competing, and they're vying for position in
the flock.
And when there's this kind of tension, a
competitive spirit, then the sheep won't lie down.
In the church of the living God, the
church of Jesus Christ, when there's a competitive
spirit, there's no way the sheep will lie
down.
There's no way there's rest in our hearts.
We sense one person vying against another, itching
to get into that top place, or itching
to be recognized for this or that.
Those who are the shepherds ought to recognize
all the sheep, because all of them have
unusual gifts.
Not one person exactly the same gifts as
the others, but the combination of their personality
traits, their natural talents, and their spiritual gifts
are unique as a mosaic, and there's nobody
else like them.
That's why the shepherd loves to have that
time with each one of those sheep each
day, and that sheep feels there's something special.
We haven't been doing it the last few
months, but very frequently we would have one
of our grandchildren all the time over to
breakfast, run them off to school after, they
don't live too far away, and it's always
nice to have one of them there, just
one.
Sit them in the place of the guest
of honor there, lay the table properly for
breakfast, and lay it all out there just
like it's a dinner with candles at breakfast
time.
But you know what I mean, they sort
of look at this and they say, oh
can't I just stuff this in my mouth
and run to school?
No, this is proper breakfast.
And you get them over there, they feel
different.
And you know, one at a time it's
nice to do that, well that's what the
shepherd does, and in order to break that
tension oftentimes he just calms that sheep down.
Now if that isn't calmed down, if there's
still this tension and competitive spirit, then the
sheep won't lie down.
The Lord Jesus enables us to avoid that,
because as I said this morning, he shows
us that he came not to be served,
but to serve.
And as I've said a dozen times in
these six months, there isn't any competition at
the bottom.
That means that if we are servants, have
a servant spirit, there won't be this competitive,
vying for position, this butting order, and the
sheep will lie down.
A third reason, excuse me, a third reason
why sheep will not lie down is not
only when there's fear, to lie down they've
got to be free from fear, to lie
down they've got to be free from tension
in the flock, but thirdly they've got to
be free from aggravation, from annoyance, from the
things that annoy them, particularly those parasites, and
they get in the field, particularly in the
hot months, you know, and all those little
flies, particularly all those different flies, they're completely,
some of them just lay eggs in the
sheep's mucous membrane here, and they get up
through the whole system, and the sheep can't
get rid of them.
Sometimes sheep are so utterly devastated and annoyed
at all these insects, that they'll shake themselves,
and they'll go and rub against a tree,
sometimes they throw themselves against a tree.
Sheep have been known to kill themselves by
virtue of the fact they've been annoyed with
insects or parasites.
When there's annoyance by one member of the
body on the part of another, you can't
stand them, you see them come in here,
you go and sit over there, or when
you see that person and you can't stand
them because, you know, I don't know how
people can stand me because I'm always talking,
you know, and I understand that.
Some people are so nice and quiet, and
boy, when they talk, I lift up my
ears, and I came to the conclusion some
years ago, as I thought about how can
I be quiet, I thought about there's no
one more obnoxious than someone that's got an
opinion on every subject, and I thought, Lord,
am I like that?
If I've got an opinion on every subject,
but you know, there are all kinds of
ways we can annoy one another, but you
know, the gracious thing is that the Spirit
of God pours in grace to put up
with even the most annoying characters, and when
the shepherd is there with you, then his
life is ministered to you by that Holy
Spirit who pours in that grace so we
can put up with one another, and then
you can lie down and you can be
at rest, even though that person's sitting right
next to you and even rubbing shoulder to
shoulder.
There's a fourth reason, though, why sheep won't
lie down, it's the main reason.
Not only must they be free from fear,
free from tension, free from annoyance, but they
must be free from hunger.
That's why he makes me lie down in
green pastures.
Probably, this is the middle of the day
now, a sheep will perhaps start off in
the early hours of the morning before most
of us are awake, and they'll go out
then to pastures.
They start with the rougher ones, and then
they gradually make their way towards a nice
pasture, but about 10 o'clock, maybe 10
.30 in the morning, in Israel in particular,
the sheep need a rest.
So the shepherd says, okay, it's time now,
I'll just check out this field, everything's fine,
I'll make sure I got my sling there
ready to throw, I got my club here,
and I want to make sure that everything's
safe, so they can lie down, as long
as they're free from fear, free from tension,
free from annoyance, but now they have to
be free from hunger, and if they're still
hungry, they're only now getting to the richest
pastures.
Now they're only getting to the green pastures.
There aren't many green places in Israel, as
you know, but if they're in the green
pastures, they know they've got the finest pasture
they can get, and as they feed on
that, and as they eat that, then they're
contented, oh my, so contented, and then they
lie down.
If they're free from those four things, they
can lie down.
Now the Lord Jesus has made it so
that we won't be, we all be hungry
for him, there's a sense in which we
never cease to hunger, we never cease to
thirst.
I've told you a number of times over
these months, in fact, it's the essence of
my book, Thirsting After God, that frankly, that
the more we drink from the fountainhead, the
more thirsty we will become.
I don't mean in that sense, I mean
if the sheep have had enough just for
the time being, they lie down, and with
us, of course, when God feeds us, and
when he gives us to drink, then what
happens is we are absolutely satisfied only momentarily,
and then just like that, with that he
gives us an increased capacity, so we still
keep on hungering and thirsting.
So the ones that are most hungry and
most thirsty are the ones that keep on
eating and drinking.
However, with the sheep, they must have enough
right there and then, and if they've had
enough to eat, then they'll lie down.
Now God has made his wonderful word available
to us, and the more you take of
that, the more hungry you will become.
The more you read it, the more you'll
want to read it.
Some people say, oh, I don't understand this,
you know, oh, I read it in the
morning, and I'm going through my Bible, I'm
going through the one-year Bible here, and
I read my Old Testament chapter, and I
read my New Testament chapter, and I read
my psalm, and my proverb, and well, you
know, it's okay, but all these people killing
one another off, and all these Levitical offerings,
I haven't got a clue what it means
that the fat on this part of the
animal goes there and there.
It doesn't mean, you know, the more you
read in the scriptures, the more hungry you'll
become, and as you become hungry, you'll just
long more to go beyond the scriptures and
come to the Lord himself.
But in this situation, when we're hungry, he
feeds us from his word, and his spirit
enables us to understand that increasingly, and the
more you read it, the more you'll understand
it, and the more satisfied you'll become, temporarily,
until he gives you a bigger appetite again,
right?
So those are the four reasons why.
Not only does he make me lie down
in green pastures, but also, I shall not
be in want of refreshment, for he leads
me beside quiet waters.
I don't have to tell you that sheep
won't drink from rushing streams, they don't like
fast-flowing streams at all, and sometimes they
would build a dam, perhaps, in the river,
so that there'd be a not such a
fast-flowing part in the stream.
Or sometimes, at the side, in the little
backwater there, the shepherd may just dig a
kind of a deep hole there, if he
can, with his hands, with the stuff underneath,
if it's soft enough, and somehow it's a
little bit quieter.
But the sheep doesn't like rough, fast-flowing
water.
He has to have still waters, quiet waters,
or, as the literal translation is, he leads
me beside waters of rest.
For the rest comes not only from the
green pastures, when they're lying down, but they
have rest, because these waters don't trouble them.
The Spirit of God is the water that
flowed from the rock of Christ, as we've
seen in the last few weeks.
He was the rock smitten, the Spirit of
God came, and he just satisfies our thirst,
only to the point where, in the end,
we have this increased capacity and keep on
crying out for more.
But he leads me beside the quiet waters,
the places I love to drink from, all
to put the Spirit and the word together,
the green pastures and the quiet waters, if
you like, although, again, I wouldn't argue over
what that means.
I think sometimes we go too far in
insisting that every little analogue has to have
some spiritual meaning.
It doesn't always have one, you know, but
I guess you can read it into it,
as long as it's in the rest of
Scripture, I won't argue, but if it's against
Scripture, be very careful.
But he makes me lie down in green
pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters.
Isn't that marvelous?
He leads me.
He is over there, in all his greatness
and wonderful, wonderful person.
I am over here, he, me.
But in between, is it equal?
No.
He leads me.
All I've got to do is to follow.
I don't have to worry about anything, just
like a little child, they don't have too
many worries about money, or how they're going
to get the mortgage put together, or where
the next job's going to come from.
No!
Just follow the parents, whatever they say.
He leads me.
Isn't that a marvelous thing?
Get that into our minds and say, Lord,
when I maybe can't think too deeply, when
maybe I'm on my deathbed, Lord, I may
not be able to think too deeply, and
maybe Alzheimer's is gradually getting a hold of
me, Lord.
My mother had Alzheimer's very badly for the
last three years of her life.
She didn't know who my father was, and
yet she would remember some of those scriptural
expressions.
Isn't it a wonderful thing?
Although there was one thing we couldn't understand,
because when my father said, isn't it wonderful
that Jesus died for us?
She suddenly said, Jesus isn't dead.
What she meant was, she knew he was
alive, and she couldn't realize, of course, that
he had died.
That part had just gone from her.
But how wonderful that these expressions remain.
He leads me.
Isn't that a marvelous thing?
To join those together.
He leads me beside quiet waters.
Well, look at the next thing that we
shall not be in want of restoration.
For verse three says, he restores my soul.
He renews my soul.
He gives me a new beginning, which is
the theme that Pastor Doug's going to start
next week.
He gives me that new beginning.
He restores it.
It's just like I'm going back to square
one on snakes and ladders and starting all
over again.
I'm going to throw the right number this
time.
No, snakes and ladders, never heard of that,
did you?
No, sorry, that was a hundred years ago.
Whatever the modern equivalent is.
Anyway, you know, sometimes you slip down this,
this snake, and you go all the way
down the bottom.
But here it is, starting, he restores my
soul.
When do we need restoration?
Let me suggest three specific scenarios when we
need restoration.
Number one, when we have failed to take
advantage of having a time of devotion, a
quiet time with the Lord, and we've got
dry, and his voice seems distant and far
away, and we don't recognize it too easily
anymore, because we've gone weeks, maybe months, who
knows, could be years, without hearing his voice,
without going to the word and saying, Lord,
I want to hear your voice in it
today.
Lord, my soul is all dry and shriveled
up.
And the Lord says, doesn't matter, you've been
away a long time, but that's fine.
I'm glad to see you've come back.
And what I'm going to do now, you
just have to meet the conditions, and you
just have to get back into that word
and talk with me again in communion in
that time, and I will restore, I'll bring
restoration and renewal to your soul.
Second time, a second kind of scenario is
when perhaps there's some lack of confession in
our lives.
There's a specific sin or a need for
us to confess things in our lives which
we've not gone to the Lord with and
told him about, and that breaks that communion.
It may not change your status if you
really know the Lord Jesus, you're still a
sheep, but it's broken the communion.
You don't want to come up to him
and let him cuddle you each day, you
know, and you don't want to talk to
him, because he doesn't want to talk unless
you come up and say, hey, shepherd, you
know, I blew it today.
He wants to hear you say that.
He wants that confession from us, particularly if
we're living in some habitual sinful state, and
we know that thing is sinful, but we
keep on doing it, and the only way
we can keep on doing that is to
rationalize that what is wrong is actually okay.
And as long as we do that, we
can rationalize, we can keep living that way.
But God says, no, you need your soul
restored, and when you come back and are
prepared now to confess that, agree with me
that it's sin, that's what confess means, then
it is I can restore your soul.
Or as a third scenario, too, and that
is when our spirit has been too much
involved with and too much just taken over
by a worldly spirit.
Maybe our priorities are wrong.
Maybe our business has got a hold of
us to the point where we know and
we rationalize, well, I've got to leave my
family enough money, you know, but there's never
enough, is there?
You always know that.
And you've got to keep on getting involved
with it to the point where, not that
you're asking God each morning to be your
partner in business, but you now haven't got
too much time to ask God to do
anything, you've just got to get off because
you've got so many customers and you're making
so much money.
And what's happened is gradually it sort of
fizzles out, and you haven't had any time
with it.
Your priorities are wrong.
There's a worldly spirit taken over, not only
in that area, but in many other areas
of life.
The way we look, perhaps, or the things
we're known for, or the knowledge we want
to seek after, all kinds of other things,
or get lost and hooked on the internet
to the point where first thing I do
when I get up in the morning is
switch on that silly machine and I boot
it up before I put my socks on.
And I just seem to just get into
that thing and all the time, here I
am just absorbed with that.
Now, when we get absorbed with anything that
is not the priority, we need to have
our souls restored.
I wonder tonight, how wonderful to see this
room packed again tonight, but I wonder if
something has taken the place of the one
who is your shepherd.
You may be involving Christian work, you may
be leading a group this fall, you may
be starting a new ministry, you may be
taking leadership in some way in the church,
but still nobody else knows that your soul
is in need of restoration.
Could I urge you tonight, before you go
to bed, just kneel down by your bed
and say, Lord, I want to confess.
I was willing to do all these other
things and I can, but I'll be doing
them my own strength unless you restore my
soul.
Lord, I come to you now in confession
to put my priorities right and I ask
you to keep me in your word and
by your spirit fill my life with your
life.
He restores my soul, but he guides me
in paths of righteousness, so I shall not
be in want of rest, of refreshment, of
restoration.
Now I shall not be in want of
guidance.
He guides me in the paths of righteousness.
Guidance.
Who will he guide?
He will guide those who want to be
guided.
You must want to be guided and you
won't want to be guided if the previous
line is true, that you need restoration and
you're not coming to put it right.
You won't want to be guided at all.
You're enjoying doing all the things you're doing.
It won't last for long, mind, but frankly,
the Lord says, I want to guide you
and I'll guide the one who wants to
be guided.
The way to pray is not perhaps you
can't tell God a lie.
Lord, I want to be guided when you
don't.
Say, Lord, I want to want to be
guided.
And Lord, if I want to want to
be guided, I know what I've got to
do and I'm just not doing it.
Would you now give me the courage and
the strength to change my ways so I'll
do the things that I know you will
then guide me in.
So who?
The ones that want to be guided.
But how does he guide us in the
paths of righteousness?
How does he guide us?
Well, there are many ways.
He guides us primarily from this book as
we read it.
It's amazing all the guidance you get.
It keeps on coming.
I've been reading it for nearly 50 years,
for 50 years now, and frankly, I just
find there's constantly more and more guidance all
the time that I'd never seen before, even
though I read the passage many times maybe.
And he will guide us not only through
his word, but by his spirit.
Be careful of his spirit on your own,
on his own, because it may be something
you had in your pizza last night.
But frankly, put the word and the spirit
together and you'll find that his spirit never
guides you contrary to the word, but will
often give you a little extra detail on
what he wants you to do.
He may guide you through something you heard
in church, through the person sitting next to
you right now when the session is over
tonight.
They'll say something to you and you say,
you know, that's exactly what I needed right
now.
I didn't know that was true.
That's the way God wants to guide me.
He'll guide you through a book you may
be reading.
He may guide you and give you an
ability to contemplate his blessed person as you're
watching a western sunset there.
Whatever it is, he can guide you in
many ways, but still the main way is
in this book.
Not only who does he guide and how
does he guide, but where does he guide?
Look, he guides me in the paths of
righteousness.
Now, of course, I guess for a sheep,
not quite so much the moral accountability perhaps
as we have, but for a sheep it
means he guides me in the right paths.
That's the paths of righteousness, the right paths.
He knows exactly where to go, how to
avoid the problems here, and he knows how
to take me to avoid that valley and
all these poisonous grasses.
He knows exactly where to take me, so
he guides me in the right paths.
But for us as his human sheep, he's
the shepherd.
He guides me not only in the right
paths, for he will do that in our
lives.
There are principles that are true for all
of us in scripture, but then individually according
to your own makeup and what God wants
you to do with your life, he'll guide
you in the right paths for you.
But when it comes to the paths of
righteousness, they're the same for all of us,
for the moral standards of scripture apply to
every one of us, whatever culture, language, or
color of our skin.
So, therefore, he guides me, and every time
he guides me, it will be always in
the righteousness paths.
It will make me more like Christ.
It will always agree with what's in scripture,
in the paths of righteousness.
I wonder when we last really asked God
for guidance.
Roland, you've been asking the Lord for guidance
a lot lately.
Can I ask you just to come in
a minute?
I just saw your face.
I hadn't planned anything here, so I don't
know what to ask you, but what are
you asking the Lord for guidance for right
now?
Well, I thought I was meant to go
back to the Philippines in January, and I
was with Team Mission.
You're a missionary there then?
I was for a short term, and I
found out from the doctor that they couldn't
send me because I had a medical condition
that they felt was too risky.
So, I began to feel as I prayed
that I wasn't losing my sense of guidance
to return.
So, I didn't know what to do with
that, and I thought it needs audacity to
go out on a limb, and if God
lets me fall, so be it.
There's something to learn in that, and I'll
perhaps learn that God makes parachutes or something,
but whatever it is.
So, I began to ask God to give
me a group of people that would help
me get back, and if there were risks
to make those risks minimized or use awkward
situations, I might get in for His glory.
And right at this moment, actually this weekend,
there's one person in Manila who's got the
key to this.
The board is 90% saying, come on
back.
The board of the mission, isn't it?
The board of the church, the church that
had called me as a pastor.
I'm a fellowship pastor, actually, but no one
would know that because I've never done anything
here, but they've asked me to come as
a pastor to help on their church planting
team, and I'm trusting God to have me
ready, and I presume He's making it so
precarious because I know He wants to refine
my life.
When do you think you'll be going back,
if you go back?
The end of the month.
The end of September, and it's only awaiting
this medical decision?
Yes, that's right.
Well, actually, it's one of the board members.
We all know there are risks, but this
board member who's very influential in the church
there is not sure that she wants to
take this risk, so everybody else is talking
to her, and they've got the answers she
needs, and we're just waiting now for the
final decision.
Well, let's pray for her, Roland.
Thank you.
Lord Jesus, you've just told us in your
word, which is as up-to-date as
tomorrow's newspaper, that you guide us in paths
of righteousness.
Lord Roland wants your righteousness in his life.
He wants Christ to take over more and
more, and Lord, we know that as long
as our hearts are in that place where
we're willing to accept your ruling, that you
will be able to rule and send us
in paths of righteousness.
So I pray now for the decision that
must be made in Manila, for the decision
that must be made ultimately by this board,
and if Roland is to be there, Lord,
pastoring that church in the Philippines, I pray
that that will come through positive, and he'll
be able to leave, and you'll supply his
need as that is needed too.
And then, Lord, if the answer is no,
I pray that he may have spent so
much time with you that he'll know that's
the best decision of the shepherd because there
was something in the field that he couldn't
see.
We leave it in your hands, and thank
you that we can claim this beautiful line
of Psalm 23 in the name of Jesus.
Amen.
So let's have a look at the next
passage.
Yes, it is getting on.
All right.
Well, let's quickly just look at the fourth
verse, the last one.
When I become a wonderful person because he's
guided me, I say, wow, look what I
did.
No.
It's for his namesake.
It's for his glory.
It's so that his character may be known
more by people, that they may say, this
must be a wonderful God.
I think I told you before that some
years ago, I was down at Campus Crusade
in San Bernardino, California, and I was with
Bill Bright in the morning, and it was
an early morning, about 10 to eight, and
he was coming in at my appointment.
It was eight o'clock with him, and
I was standing looking at these 100 board
members, not board members, 100 staff members, the
first 100 staff members of Campus Crusade a
long time ago, and there they were down
there, and I was looking at them, and
you know, they're kind of ordinary people to
me, and I thought, well, this organization seems
certainly he's got good vision, and I looked,
and then lo and behold, I found a
hand on my shoulder.
There was Bill Bright, and he said, what
are you looking at?
Looking at those people?
He said, they look quite ordinary, don't they?
And I didn't like to say, how can
you read my mind?
He said, you know, I love taking ordinary
people, even subordinary people, because when something happens
in their lives, people say, hey, that can't
have been them, that's got to have been
God.
They couldn't have done it on their own,
it had to be God.
So it's all for his namesake, and it's
for his glory, and that's why I think
God is in a wonderful way enriched and
blessed Campus Crusade.
Amen, Ed Becker?
Amen, I thought you'd say that.
Okay, well, let's have a look at verse
four, and we'll be through with this, all
right?
Even though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death, I will fear no
evil, for you are with me, your rod
and your staff, they comfort me.
Just look at some of these marvelous words.
The King James actually has, yay, though I
walk.
How many of you got a King James
in front of you tonight?
You refuse to look at my sheep, don't
you?
All right, that's fine, but you can be
useful still, you know.
You can say, yes, it starts off with
yay.
And as I remember, I said some months
ago when I took a verse from Romans
8, I said, you know, yay and nay
mean the same thing, because in Romans 8,
37, nay and all these things we are
more than conquerors means the same as yay.
Yay, even though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death, I'll fear no
evil.
They both say, hey, get a load of
this, fellas, it's true, it really is true.
But the NIV doesn't like the yays, they
put even, that's fine.
Even though, yay, yay, though I walk.
Think of that marvelous word.
Though is a marvelous word, you know, if
you read the most dreadful scenarios around and
things that can happen.
And if it didn't have the word though
on the front and it said, I fell
among a band of robbers.
If it starts off with, though I fall
among a band of robbers, it makes all
the difference, doesn't it?
Because you just don't bother to read that
part, you know that the part it ends
with is the most important part, though.
I remember when I was a little boy,
we used to wear, when we were about,
oh, I guess seven or eight years of
age, I always used to wear short pants
then, you know, you couldn't wear long pants
until you were fourteen.
Isn't that right?
I think it was about fourteen, that's right.
So short pants, you know.
And I remember climbing over the shed in
the back of our garden at the back
and we had an old field at the
back.
People used to tip rubbish there, they didn't
have things like, they never heard of the
word environment in those days.
And they tucked things there, but it was
never cut.
They couldn't cut the grass and all cans
and bottles and all that were there.
And so we used to run through after
we'd stolen apples from my father's orchard, you
know, and we'd have them tucked up in
our sweaters here and they'd jump, they'd fall
down on the roof, the tin roof and
roll down and we'd climb down the other
side and run through the field.
I couldn't stand it because it was full
of stinging nettles and I would just go
gently and all my friends would run on
and I couldn't stand these stinging nettles, you
know.
You need all this, all these blisters come,
the stinging nettles around your ankles.
So one day one of my friends said
to me, what are you worried about?
He said, notice that in England, in Britain,
wherever you see stinging nettles, within two feet
you'll find a dock leaf.
And the dock leaf is a leaf like
that and all you've got to do is
to take the dock leaf and down the
middle, I've got a feeling I told you
this about two weeks ago, but anyway, here
it is again.
I got, right down, he said, you just
bend the dock leaf, just, no I didn't,
I think I told them this in Peterborough
two weeks ago, that's what it was.
You bend the dock leaf and what happens
is when you bend the dock leaf, break
the stem, squeeze it and sap comes out
and just like that wonderful two and a
half percent hydrocortisone cream, you just rub it
in that little blister and bingo, within about
half a minute there's no more itching.
It's anti-puritic and anti-inflammatory and it's
marvellous stuff.
So now I would run into that field,
I said, I couldn't care less about these
stinging nettles because though I walk into a
bunch of stinging nettles, there are plenty of
dock leaves around.
That's the idea that's here, but it's in
much more serious form.
For though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death, I will fear no
evil, and you don't worry about that because
you're waiting to see what the end of
the sentence is, for you are with me,
you are with me, even though I walk,
walk, walk through a valley like that, there's
all kinds of danger around.
I used to walk home from Brynmill School
in Swansea, up through Brynmill Park and Singleton
Park when I was about eight or nine
again.
I remember Singleton, it was a long way
from where I lived to my school, it
was three miles, although now I notice when
I do it in the car, it's only
half a mile now, but it used to
be three miles when I was in school
and it was a long walk, you know,
and I would go there and what was
I saying before you?
Oh yes, school, and I used to come
up through this park, well Singleton Park was
a dark, it used to have what we
thought were weird, I mean, it's like Stonehenge,
all those old stones, you know, they have
in Britain, some of these places, the circle
of the Druids and so on.
Anyway, I walked through the woods, it was
a long woods, again, it probably was no
more than a few hundred yards, but again,
it seemed like half a mile, and I
used to come in these woods and particularly
as the sun was dropping in the western
sky there in the wintertime and I put
my satchel, my school bag right up on
my back and pull hold of these straps
here so it wouldn't bob up and down,
you know, like it used to, and I
would start tearing off, I would tear through
these woods and suddenly I'd trip over a
root, I'd come flat on my face, oh,
I think now he's going to get me,
whoever he is, and I'd wait there and
I'd listen, then I'd hear a noise over
there, a bird stepped on a twig, I'd
know it was the bogeyman, you know, and
I'd say, oh no, and I must get
up again and run and run and run
until I'd get out into the sunshine on
the other side into the meadow that was
wonderful, but this doesn't say even though I
run in terror through the valley of the
shadow of death, this doesn't say even though
I turn back discouraged through the valley of
the shadow of death, it doesn't say even
though I stand still petrified in the valley
of the shadow of death, it says, yea,
even though I walk, walk, how can you
walk through Singleton Park, walk, for thou art
with me, you're holding my hand, you've beaten
all this enemy, you beat him on the
cross, he's completely stripped of his power to
do any damage to you, and so he's
with you right now, and that's what it
says, even though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death, but it says
even though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death, when thou passest under
the water, says the old King James in
beautiful up-to-date language, when thou passest
under the waters, I will be with thee,
is that what it says?
No.
When thou passest, or when you pass through
the waters, I will be with you, for
this valley is a wonderful valley, it's a
difficult valley, it's a dark valley, but frankly
this valley is a brief valley, it's just
a parenthesis, you're not going to pitch a
tent in this valley, you're going to walk
through it, you're not going to settle there,
it's not a place that you build a
house on, you're just passing through it, and
the valley of the shadow of death is
like that, you pass through that, and how
wonderful it is, I remember my father, he
was a carpenter and builder, and I remember
he used to lock up his workshop, sometime
I'd be over in the workshop with him,
and he had about a mile to go
home there, and I remember he'd lock up
the workshop, turn the lights out, all the
tools would be on the bench, he'd sort
it all out, and he'd leave it and
lock it up, I think he's left his
place, but he's only got a short way
to go home, and he arrives at his
real home, and here I thought, this was
his real place, it's just like a man
who's a tradesman, and he's just locking up
the place where he's been working in order
to take a short trip and get home,
or it's just like this valley of the
shadow of death, like maybe a baby again
in the womb that you were seeing, was
it last week or two weeks ago, I
don't know what it's like, I can't remember
myself, although some people claim they can, but
here is a baby in the womb, and
thinking this is so comfortable here, this is
so wonderful here, and can you believe, I
get a sense that this is coming to
an end, I can feel all these funny
movements inside here, and all these things that
seem to be getting more frequent, I've got
a feeling that this is going to come
to an end, I'm not going to surely
be put out of my home, but the
baby has only got to pass through a
narrow valley, mind you, only, it's all right
for a man to say only, I mean
that's pretty difficult isn't it, those days, those
hours of labor, maybe minutes, sometimes a day
or so, and it passed through that, when
they pass through that, then what they realize,
oh what I thought was a wonderful place,
home, look at the brightness out here, look
at the light out here, look at all
the wonder, and the color, and the beauty,
and everything else, I didn't get that in
there, and I thought that was home, that's
the same isn't it, as we go through
the valley of the shadow of death, we
don't want to leave this place, but oh
if only we would know, if only we
could know, what he's got beyond us, far
better, far better, this is only a little
training ground for it, so you pass through,
you pass through, but even though I pass
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for thou art
with me, incidentally, the other valleys in life
may be some that you're going through tonight,
the valley of the shadow of death is
indeed a deep valley, a dark valley, but
it's not as long as some of the
others, as I said just now, maybe the
valley you're going through right now, of not
knowing what God's mind is on something Roland,
or not knowing just what's going to happen
with one of your children, that seems to
be in trouble in their marriage, or something
that's happened in business, and you can see
a reversal around the corner, something, maybe you
don't know those things, you're going through a
deep valley right now, the truths that are
here, for the valley of the shadow of
death, are true in every darkest deep valley,
for that's what it means, and God wants
us just to put these wonderful truths, because
when I pass through the valley, wants us
to put them into practice, I will fear
no evil, what a marvellous declaration, oh sometimes
I can say that, you know, and sometimes
I'm, I almost whisper it, you know, we
get these ups and downs sometimes in our
lives, and if you think preachers don't go
through that, then you ask Pastor Doug, you
ask Roland, you ask, yeah that's right, because
we do sometimes feel like that, and all
kinds of things get us down, they don't,
usually it's because we've not been keeping close
enough to the shepherd, or we haven't been
hearing his voice today as much, because that
perfect love casts out fear, but I will
fear no evil, it doesn't exist, yes it
does exist, don't stick your head in the
sand and say it isn't there, but you
can take all of the fog, so I
remember hearing Earl Nightingale say about 40 years
ago on the radio Southern Manitoba, and I
was driving through there, he said you can
take all the, all of the fog on
10 square city blocks, and you know you
can contain all the moisture in that fog
in one glass, one glass, in other words
it looks much worse than it is, no,
when he is with me, I need fear
no evil, don't say it doesn't exist, we
recognize it, we face the foe, but we
say I won't fear any evil, for thou
art with me, your rod and your staff
they comfort me, the main thing Lord, your
rod and your staff wouldn't do much unless
you were there, you are the one that
wields those, but Lord you are with me
and when you're there holding my hand I
can assure you this Lord, I will not
fear any evil because you can cope with
any emergency that comes up, your rod and
your staff, we were asking some folk at
lunch today at meal, midday meal, some people
think that the rod is one thing and
the staff's the other, others take it the
other way around, I notice even shepherds tell
you when they write about the scriptures, Philip
Keller looks at it one way and the
Basque Shepherd, I told you readers digest, he's
the other, some of them say that the
rod is the tall one like the shepherd's
crook and the staff is the thing he's
got around here, the club that he just
makes sure that the enemy is taken care
of, other people say no and I tend
to go for this that this indeed is
the rod and this is the one, the
rod that is the defensive weapon and then
of course the shepherd's crook is the staff
you see that he would lean on and
so on, but whatever it is they're both
in actual fact instruments of discipline and it's
strange to find that with instruments of discipline
I'm going to get comforted, yet that's the
way God does it but you see he
takes one of them which is the defensive
weapon and he takes the other one which
is the guiding weapon and Keller says now
you know there's nothing wrong in this again
don't build a doctrine on it but frankly
it's possible that this is the way God
as he takes his word on the one
hand by which he defended himself and God's
name against the evil one that came in
the day of temptation in Matthew 4 and
he takes the rod the staff on the
other hand the shepherd's crook by which he
guides us and he says this is like
the word of God that we defend with
and this one to guide us is like
the spirit of God so whatever it is
whether they mean that or not and probably
they don't specifically mean anything just those are
the things that he uses but how wonderful
to let them remind us at least that
God has his word and God has his
spirit and by his word and his spirit
he can guide us through those places and
defend us well there's so much in these
I haven't I'm not going to go into
any more other than to say you'll have
to do the last two verses yourself because
I won't force the sheep into that even
though they may be sitting at my table
tomorrow I won't force them into that even
though as you know it can be a
table you prepare a table that can be
looking after a field making sure there's no
poisonous plants and so on in the presence
of my enemies can be the wolf or
the bear or whatever the lion again you
anoint my head with oil can certainly be
when the sheep comes back he's got some
bruising on and you put ointment on his
head just like he goes underneath the staff
at night my cup overflows it can certainly
be that he gives me plenty of everything
in life I want and then goodness and
love I'm not too sure those are the
two sheepdogs but if you will insist on
it I'll let you have it goodness and
and indeed as pastor Doug says he'd rather
see the word mercy there your goodness and
your loving kindness is the best isn't it
will follow me all the days of my
life and I will dwell in the house
of the lord let me ask you I've
only just overflowed a little bit from this
psalm but there's so much more in it
oh do you love it do you love
this psalm do you know it by heart
if you do whichever version you know close
your eyes right now and even though we
say different versions let's say it together close
your eyes one two three let's go the
lord is my shepherd I shall not want
he makes me lie down in green pastures
he leads me beside the quiet waters he
restores my soul he leads 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 you prepare a
table before me in the presence of my
enemies you anoint my head with oil my
cup runs 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 learn it off in whatever
version you've got you may have forgotten it
maybe just came back now and as you
do remember this shepherd wants to do the
seven things we saw this morning he wants
to lead you he wants to feed you
he wants to protect you he wants to
correct you allow him to he wants to
search for you when you go astray he
wants to heal you when you've been bruised
and he wants to love you and commune
with you this is our shepherd this is
our great god and I don't know about
you but I couldn't do without him amen
amen