Rev. Alan J. Meenan
Last week we had the pleasure of hearing the Reverend Munthali. He is now back in Malawi and sends greetings and word that extraordinary things are happening, not only in Africa, but Asia and South America.
It is said that some 23,000 people per day are turning to Christ in Africa. A similar number of people are accepting Christ in South America. 100 million believers have surfaced in China. They have sent 100,000 missionaries across the regions, the Hindu and Buddhist regions of Burma, India, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, and Israel. Korea has become the second largest missions sending country in the world! Nigeria has sent 4,000 Nigerians outside its borders to proclaim the message of Jesus Christ. Once a month a half million people gather to pray outside Lagos. These are some of the phenomenal things that I have been talking about in the past weeks that are going on in the world.
News continues to come like great wild fire spreading across the world. We are living in the most exciting era in Church history from apostolic times!! I believe we are standing right in the path of this wild fire. I cannot see how America is going to avoid this wild fire coming to these shores. That makes me incredibly excited for the Gospel of Jesus Christ!
By the way, George Barna, one of the leading Church statisticians, has noted that he has already begun to see the excitement of revival beginning to touch these shores. There has been a dramatic increase in the numbers of people going to Bible studies across America, up from a previous year. Will we be prepared?
There is a very unique opportunity for the next three Saturday mornings. I want to encourage you as strongly as I can to take time out for 1½ hours, and be in the sanctuary next Saturday morning from 10:00 to 11:30. We have a senior member of the Billy Graham team who is an expert in training all of us how to witness and how to share our faith. If you attend the course, you can automatically become a counselor during the Crusade itself. But that is an option, whether or not you want to become a counselor, it seems to me that every Christian needs to be able to share their faith.
We need to be able to witness to others. Especially as we see this great movement of God’s spirit spreading across the world and coming in our direction. So I want to encourage you to earmark the next three Saturday mornings. Come hear this exciting presentation of ways in which you can learn more and be trained better in doing some of the basic things in showing your love for Jesus Christ. We, as a Church, will benefit immensely from it. The Billy Graham Crusade will also be delighted to have you there. You spiritually will be matured in your faith in coming to these three courses. So I encourage you to put it on your calendar. I will hope to see you in the sanctuary.
I want to look with you this morning at Psalm 23. I invite you to open your Bible to this chapter, but you probably already know it by heart. It is of course, probably the best-known Psalm in the Bible. Maybe even the best-known passage in the Bible, and certainly one of the most beloved ones. I could spend my time this morning simply reciting it over and over because it is so incredibly lovely.
Its universal appeal is for the great company of people who experience life’s difficulties and pain. For people that long for comfort and reassurance. For people who have just been told that they suffer from terminal illness. For people who stand by the side of open graves. For people who have been recently released from prison. For parents surviving the folly of the rebellious children or for soldiers returning from war. All these and many more circumstances are experienced in Psalm 23.
There is an inordinate amount of grace and strength underlying and underpinning the simplicity of this lovely Psalm. It helps making us ready to face almost any eventuality, even the deepest, darkest experiences of life. The simplicity and the beauty of this poetry profoundly articulate an extraordinary expression of what it really means to trust God. That’s what this Psalm really is all about. It is a Psalm of confidence. It is a Psalm of trust. If we can learn that particular lesson, I would suggest we have learned it all: we have learned how to live the life of faith.
The older I get, the more convinced I am that life is one long lesson of learning to trust God. I would even dare to take issue with some of our great Presbyterian forefathers, who gave the Christian world one of the great sayings of the Church—man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. I think that is marvelous. But I think I want to say that I believe that man’s chief end is to trust God: learning to trust Him no matter what the cost. So even though Psalm 23 is one of the best known and best loved Psalms, it is also the most inspiring.
It was Harry Ironside who suggested that while it may it be the most beloved Psalm of them all, it is one of the least believed Psalms of all. There are of course, many today who lack the confidence of this Psalm. Whenever we hit an obstacle in the road, like losing a job, or your health; a doctor has some bad news for you; someone you love has the sentence of death upon them; you’ve been turned down for career advancement. Somehow, “the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” sticks in our throat. It’s hard to get it out. Under such circumstances, any degree of holy boldness that we ever had seems to evaporate. So I ask you the question, on what do you place your confidence this morning? If we are honest, we might have to confess that it is something besides or instead of the God of Psalm 23.
It is interesting that while it is the best-loved, best-known and best-studied Psalm in the world, scholars do not know when it was written. Some have suggested that it was when David was a boy wandering the Judean hills as a shepherd that he realized that just as the sheep were dependent upon him; so he was dependent on his heavenly father. So he penned the words, “the Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want.” But as we continue into its verses, Psalm 23 indicates that it was a particularly distressful time in David’s life when he penned these words. For as a boy, prior to the anointing of his head with Samuel, he probably would not have said, “you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil.”
It has also been suggested that this Psalm was written at a particularly distasteful time in David’s life: a time when his own son had risen up in revolt against him. Absalom was laying claim to the throne of Jerusalem. David, fearing for his own life and the life of his friends, fled into the wilderness. By the jungles of the Jordan, it was suggested that possibly as he reflected up his life—he recalled his shepherding days. He remembered the Lord was his shepherd. In the midst of that tragedy, he sat down and wrote these words: “The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want.”
There are times in our lives when even your own family lets you down, when your closest friends turn their backs on you or even betray you. Times when you can’t count on your colleagues. Times when you can’t count on your brothers and sisters in Christ. Times when you can’t count on your Pastors. Because the reality is that at some time or another everyone will disappoint you. If you’re counting, trusting and putting your faith in them, you are doomed for disappointment. The tragedy is that there are many Christians today who are not enjoying victorious living because of this very fact. There are many who simply are not living victoriously because they have placed their confidence in the wrong place. Too many Christians spend their days complaining about their disappointments. The disappointments of their children. The disappointments of their Church family. The disappointments of their Pastors. The disappointments of their friends. The only thing we can guarantee you in the Church is that we will disappoint you. If I could make a promise on behalf of my colleagues, that’s probably a promise that we could all keep.
David puts his trust in God, not on any human being or human institution. David lays hold of God. He says, “The Lord is my Shepherd.” In this Psalm, he expresses confidence with three main thoughts. First, there is the simple affirmation. “The Lord is my Shepherd.” There is secondly the arresting consequence. “I shall not want.” Thirdly, there is the seven-fold interpretation that is the experience of true contentment. The first one reminds me of a story of the boy who got the wording of Psalm 23 wrong when he simply said this, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I don’t want anything else.” The simple affirmation, “the Lord is my Shepherd” is the sum total of David’s life. The Psalm begins with the word the Lord. It ends with the word the Lord. It embraces fully and comprehensively the life of David.
There is a well-worn story of a great Hollywood actor who was asked on one occasion if he would recite some poem. With great eloquence, he articulated the 23rd Psalm. When he was finished, he finished it to a standing ovation. There was an old retired Pastor at the same party. Someone turning to him asked him if he would recite something. Stumbling his way through the passage the old minister also recited the 23rd Psalm. But when he had finished, there was no applause. There was deathly silence. When the actor got up he said, “Ladies and gentleman, tonight you have heard two recitations of Psalm 23. I have demonstrated to you that I know the Psalm. This man knows the Shepherd.”
The Lord is my Shepherd. We can’t go anywhere with this Psalm unless you grasp hold of what that really means—to be able to say to God more than any other gift that you can give me, I need you. I long for you. I want you to be my Shepherd. The picture of a shepherd conjures up images of provision and protection, a concern for the welfare of the sheep—images of compassion and patience. David deliberately says the Lord is my shepherd and in so doing, gives permission to every single individual believer to take upon his/her own lips the confidence that God’s covenant love is also for them. It was Charles Haddon Spurgeon who said this, “If he be shepherd to no one else, he is shepherd to me. He cares for me. He watches over me. He preserves me.”
So if we can understand and really believe, not with just our lips, but with our hearts that the Lord really truly is our shepherd—if we could attain to that reality in our lives, then I believe we would exude a holy confidence and boldness before God that is so desperately missing. We would automatically move from the affirmation, “The Lord is my shepherd” to the arresting consequence, “I shall not want.” One belongs to the other.
Believe that God will supply every need according to the riches of his glory. I shall not lack. I shall not want for any temporal thing. He’s not talking about what you might like to have or what you desire to have, but what you need to have. God has promised that if he is your shepherd, that you will not lack any good thing. Scripture says the young lions do lack and suffer hunger, but they that seek the Lord will not want any good thing. There’s a story in the scripture of a day in the life of Elijah the prophet: when in the midst of hunger, God sent the ravens to feed him. There by the brook of Cheruf his need was taken care of. Shall we resign that to the archives of an Old Testament story with no relevance for today? Or shall we believe that is the same God and the same ability and the same love that he has for you that he had for Elijah. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. Will his grace be insufficient for me? Others who are wealthier and wiser than me shall want, but I shall not want.
But what David in essence is trying to tell us is this: That we can say that I have all things not because I have money in the bank. Not because I am skilled to do certain things that might enable me to look after myself. I have all things that I need because the Lord is my shepherd, not because of my own intrinsic ability, but because the Lord is my shepherd.
The rest of the Psalm introduces us to a variety of pictures that illustrate the profound true confidence and hope that we as believers in Jesus Christ must demonstrate as we live the life of faith. If we lack this kind of confidence, we are living at the level of mediocrity. Look at the rest of the Psalm: “He makes me to lie down in green pastures.”
I have traveled to Israel more times than I can remember. I have traveled at different times of the year. I have traveled in the winter when hills are green and verdant with grass. I have traveled in the summer time when the hills of Judea take on that California gold color. The sheep have difficulty grazing. When David says, he leads me to green pastures, he’s saying that God’s provision for me—I shall not want nourishment. He will nourish me in a way that is not seasonal, but he will take me to green pasture all the time. God’s care for me will be constant and abundant. I shall never want for that which I need. There will be no summer periods in my life, when I find it difficult scrounging for food. The Psalmist declares we can have the confidence that God will supply every need of ours. He will nourish us.
I shall not want for refreshment, because, “he leads me beside still waters” and there I will find repose, refreshment, cleansing and calm. It’s a picture of a desert oasis. Not the raging waves of strife, but the peaceful waters of holy love. He will lead me to a sense of calmness, serenity, joy, and peace. They shall be an integral part of my life. I shall not want for restoration because he restores my soul when I am down trodden.
When I am sorrowful he will revive my soul. When it is sinful, he will sanctify it. When it is weak, he will strengthen it. He restores my soul. He will never let it languish. I shall not want for direction. “He guides in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” Those paths bring the sheep directly to their destination. Albeit, he points out that there will be times when we will have go through the deep ravines of life, when life will be difficult and hard. We will have to traverse the steep, narrow pathways that will lead us into the dark chasms of the valley.
On more than one occasion outside of Jerusalem, I have taken a walk along the windy road that leads to Jericho. At times I have to watch my footing lest I slide off the path and down into the ravine where there is darkness. Because the narrowness of the ravine casts such a shadow on the valley that one walks through the valley of the shadow. Even though I walk through the valley, I will fear no evil, because you are with me. God will be ever present no matter what difficulty or problem. God promises that he will never leave you and never forsake you. You have no cause for anxiety.
Verse 4 has often been sung by many on a death-bed, helping to make the dark valley lighter. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death”, David reminds us that death is but a shadow. Anyone who has done elementary physics will understand that wherever there is a shadow there is bound to be light somewhere, else there can never be a shadow! Death is not the goal, but the passage to life. The valley of the shadow of death is simply the sting that has been removed from death. Only the shadow remains.
There is a lovely story that comes from Scotland of an old shepherd dying and a minister who comes to visit him. The old man lay dying. He was afraid of death. The minister asked him if he’d ever watched the wind blow a cloud across the valley. “Oh,” said the old man, “many a time I have stood on the hillside and watched the wind blow the clouds across.” “When the shadow of that cloud came racing across the heather towards you, said the minister, were you afraid?” The old shepherd drew himself slightly from his pillow and cried, what, afraid of a shadow? Jamie has covenanters’ blood in his veins, and he has never been afraid of anything. He will never be afraid of a shadow.” It was then that the minister turned in his Bible to Psalm 23. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not be afraid.” This old man who had been afraid experienced the truth of God’s word and was encouraged.
When I was a child, my sister had the habit of doing things with her hands. Then she would do the sound effects. She would cast a dog’s head on the wall and she would bark. But it never occurred to me to be afraid of a shadow of a dog; I recognized the shadow of a dog cannot destroy me. Neither can the shadow of death destroy you. It is but a shadow. Even then Christ goes with you. At this point of danger, the shepherd no longer goes before but alongside to escort.
The shepherd is armed—your rod and your staff they comfort me. The rod is equivalent to an Irish club. But a staff is a club. It’s used to hit someone you don’t like. But in the case of Psalm 23, it is to ward off wild animals. So your shepherd is armed to keep any danger away from you. The staff is the crook from which he pulls you back from the edge of the ravine so you are well protected.
I shall not want or I shall not lack protection. Verse 5 says, “you prepare a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. I shall not lack provision. For you anoint my head with oil and my cup overflows.” In verses 5 and 6, the shepherd imagery is replaced by one of greater intimacy. It is enough to survive but Christ makes us triumph. Here we can see God’s infinite resources in the worst of situations!! Even though enemies gather to look on, God prepares a table for you. Your enemies look on from afar. Your head is anointed with oil. Then, I shall not want or I shall not lack security. For surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. This is the confidence of the Psalmist.
Henry Ward Beecher has said this Psalm has sung courage to the army of the disappointed. It has poured balm and consolation into the heart of the sick, of captives in dungeons, of widows in their griefs, of orphans and their loneliness. It has visited the prisoner and broken his chains. It will go on singing to your children, to my children and to their children through all generations of time. That’s true. But the question I would pose this morning is this: How much do you really believe it? Will you live at this level of confidence? Will you walk around with your head high and not drooping because you are a son/daughter of the King? Will you dare to ask for miracles in your life and expect that God will answer them, if they are what you need?
Let me close with a story. Two weeks ago I sat in a chapel in Lagos, Nigeria. Three days before the end of my course that I was teaching the Provost had informed me that the school was within 3 days of closure, because they needed the next year’s rent of $270,000.00.
I asked him, “Where on earth are you going to get the money?!”
He said, “I have no idea. But I believe that we need to be here. We are the only inter-denominational Seminary in the entire city of 15 million people. Where there is so little leadership training and theological education going on. In a place that is experiencing miracle after miracle of people turning to Christ. If ever there is a need, I would suggest that this is one of the world’s greatest needs. There is nowhere better to put your money.”
I said to him as a typical Westerner, “If you were asking me for $20,000 or $30,000, something within grasp that we could manage; I could easily prep for that. But it’s hard to pray for something so impossible and ludicrous as $270,000.00 when you don’t have a penny yourself? I don’t know too many people who would just be able to give $270,000.00!”
He went into the chapel that day and invited his students to pray. They prayed with fervor, believing with a holy boldness that God was going to provide their needs. I’m sitting in a corner thinking, “you know, you shouldn’t ask God for such a huge amount of money. Small amounts are O.K.” On the third day, someone had given the gift of half of it. Some businessman in the United States had given them half of it. So they told the owner that they had 6 months that they could pay.
“Can we stay?” He said yes.
I know in 6 months again they will be praying, living always on the edge—living the life of faith, but living it with that bold confidence. I believe that is God’s call on the Church today. To be able to say with all our hearts and to mean it, “the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.” Believe it for the Church. Believe it for the world, for it really is true.
Last week we had the pleasure of hearing the Reverend Munthali. He is now back in Malawi and sends greetings and word that extraordinary things are happening, not only in Africa, but Asia and South America.
It is said that some 23,000 people per day are turning to Christ in Africa. A similar number of people are accepting Christ in South America. 100 million believers have surfaced in China. They have sent 100,000 missionaries across the regions, the Hindu and Buddhist regions of Burma, India, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, and Israel. Korea has become the second largest missions sending country in the world! Nigeria has sent 4,000 Nigerians outside its borders to proclaim the message of Jesus Christ. Once a month a half million people gather to pray outside Lagos. These are some of the phenomenal things that I have been talking about in the past weeks that are going on in the world.
News continues to come like great wild fire spreading across the world. We are living in the most exciting era in Church history from apostolic times!! I believe we are standing right in the path of this wild fire. I cannot see how America is going to avoid this wild fire coming to these shores. That makes me incredibly excited for the Gospel of Jesus Christ!
By the way, George Barna, one of the leading Church statisticians, has noted that he has already begun to see the excitement of revival beginning to touch these shores. There has been a dramatic increase in the numbers of people going to Bible studies across America, up from a previous year. Will we be prepared?
There is a very unique opportunity for the next three Saturday mornings. I want to encourage you as strongly as I can to take time out for 1½ hours, and be in the sanctuary next Saturday morning from 10:00 to 11:30. We have a senior member of the Billy Graham team who is an expert in training all of us how to witness and how to share our faith. If you attend the course, you can automatically become a counselor during the Crusade itself. But that is an option, whether or not you want to become a counselor, it seems to me that every Christian needs to be able to share their faith.
We need to be able to witness to others. Especially as we see this great movement of God’s spirit spreading across the world and coming in our direction. So I want to encourage you to earmark the next three Saturday mornings. Come hear this exciting presentation of ways in which you can learn more and be trained better in doing some of the basic things in showing your love for Jesus Christ. We, as a Church, will benefit immensely from it. The Billy Graham Crusade will also be delighted to have you there. You spiritually will be matured in your faith in coming to these three courses. So I encourage you to put it on your calendar. I will hope to see you in the sanctuary.
I want to look with you this morning at Psalm 23. I invite you to open your Bible to this chapter, but you probably already know it by heart. It is of course, probably the best-known Psalm in the Bible. Maybe even the best-known passage in the Bible, and certainly one of the most beloved ones. I could spend my time this morning simply reciting it over and over because it is so incredibly lovely.
Its universal appeal is for the great company of people who experience life’s difficulties and pain. For people that long for comfort and reassurance. For people who have just been told that they suffer from terminal illness. For people who stand by the side of open graves. For people who have been recently released from prison. For parents surviving the folly of the rebellious children or for soldiers returning from war. All these and many more circumstances are experienced in Psalm 23.
There is an inordinate amount of grace and strength underlying and underpinning the simplicity of this lovely Psalm. It helps making us ready to face almost any eventuality, even the deepest, darkest experiences of life. The simplicity and the beauty of this poetry profoundly articulate an extraordinary expression of what it really means to trust God. That’s what this Psalm really is all about. It is a Psalm of confidence. It is a Psalm of trust. If we can learn that particular lesson, I would suggest we have learned it all: we have learned how to live the life of faith.
The older I get, the more convinced I am that life is one long lesson of learning to trust God. I would even dare to take issue with some of our great Presbyterian forefathers, who gave the Christian world one of the great sayings of the Church—man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. I think that is marvelous. But I think I want to say that I believe that man’s chief end is to trust God: learning to trust Him no matter what the cost. So even though Psalm 23 is one of the best known and best loved Psalms, it is also the most inspiring.
It was Harry Ironside who suggested that while it may it be the most beloved Psalm of them all, it is one of the least believed Psalms of all. There are of course, many today who lack the confidence of this Psalm. Whenever we hit an obstacle in the road, like losing a job, or your health; a doctor has some bad news for you; someone you love has the sentence of death upon them; you’ve been turned down for career advancement. Somehow, “the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” sticks in our throat. It’s hard to get it out. Under such circumstances, any degree of holy boldness that we ever had seems to evaporate. So I ask you the question, on what do you place your confidence this morning? If we are honest, we might have to confess that it is something besides or instead of the God of Psalm 23.
It is interesting that while it is the best-loved, best-known and best-studied Psalm in the world, scholars do not know when it was written. Some have suggested that it was when David was a boy wandering the Judean hills as a shepherd that he realized that just as the sheep were dependent upon him; so he was dependent on his heavenly father. So he penned the words, “the Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want.” But as we continue into its verses, Psalm 23 indicates that it was a particularly distressful time in David’s life when he penned these words. For as a boy, prior to the anointing of his head with Samuel, he probably would not have said, “you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil.”
It has also been suggested that this Psalm was written at a particularly distasteful time in David’s life: a time when his own son had risen up in revolt against him. Absalom was laying claim to the throne of Jerusalem. David, fearing for his own life and the life of his friends, fled into the wilderness. By the jungles of the Jordan, it was suggested that possibly as he reflected up his life—he recalled his shepherding days. He remembered the Lord was his shepherd. In the midst of that tragedy, he sat down and wrote these words: “The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want.”
There are times in our lives when even your own family lets you down, when your closest friends turn their backs on you or even betray you. Times when you can’t count on your colleagues. Times when you can’t count on your brothers and sisters in Christ. Times when you can’t count on your Pastors. Because the reality is that at some time or another everyone will disappoint you. If you’re counting, trusting and putting your faith in them, you are doomed for disappointment. The tragedy is that there are many Christians today who are not enjoying victorious living because of this very fact. There are many who simply are not living victoriously because they have placed their confidence in the wrong place. Too many Christians spend their days complaining about their disappointments. The disappointments of their children. The disappointments of their Church family. The disappointments of their Pastors. The disappointments of their friends. The only thing we can guarantee you in the Church is that we will disappoint you. If I could make a promise on behalf of my colleagues, that’s probably a promise that we could all keep.
David puts his trust in God, not on any human being or human institution. David lays hold of God. He says, “The Lord is my Shepherd.” In this Psalm, he expresses confidence with three main thoughts. First, there is the simple affirmation. “The Lord is my Shepherd.” There is secondly the arresting consequence. “I shall not want.” Thirdly, there is the seven-fold interpretation that is the experience of true contentment. The first one reminds me of a story of the boy who got the wording of Psalm 23 wrong when he simply said this, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I don’t want anything else.” The simple affirmation, “the Lord is my Shepherd” is the sum total of David’s life. The Psalm begins with the word the Lord. It ends with the word the Lord. It embraces fully and comprehensively the life of David.
There is a well-worn story of a great Hollywood actor who was asked on one occasion if he would recite some poem. With great eloquence, he articulated the 23rd Psalm. When he was finished, he finished it to a standing ovation. There was an old retired Pastor at the same party. Someone turning to him asked him if he would recite something. Stumbling his way through the passage the old minister also recited the 23rd Psalm. But when he had finished, there was no applause. There was deathly silence. When the actor got up he said, “Ladies and gentleman, tonight you have heard two recitations of Psalm 23. I have demonstrated to you that I know the Psalm. This man knows the Shepherd.”
The Lord is my Shepherd. We can’t go anywhere with this Psalm unless you grasp hold of what that really means—to be able to say to God more than any other gift that you can give me, I need you. I long for you. I want you to be my Shepherd. The picture of a shepherd conjures up images of provision and protection, a concern for the welfare of the sheep—images of compassion and patience. David deliberately says the Lord is my shepherd and in so doing, gives permission to every single individual believer to take upon his/her own lips the confidence that God’s covenant love is also for them. It was Charles Haddon Spurgeon who said this, “If he be shepherd to no one else, he is shepherd to me. He cares for me. He watches over me. He preserves me.”
So if we can understand and really believe, not with just our lips, but with our hearts that the Lord really truly is our shepherd—if we could attain to that reality in our lives, then I believe we would exude a holy confidence and boldness before God that is so desperately missing. We would automatically move from the affirmation, “The Lord is my shepherd” to the arresting consequence, “I shall not want.” One belongs to the other.
Believe that God will supply every need according to the riches of his glory. I shall not lack. I shall not want for any temporal thing. He’s not talking about what you might like to have or what you desire to have, but what you need to have. God has promised that if he is your shepherd, that you will not lack any good thing. Scripture says the young lions do lack and suffer hunger, but they that seek the Lord will not want any good thing. There’s a story in the scripture of a day in the life of Elijah the prophet: when in the midst of hunger, God sent the ravens to feed him. There by the brook of Cheruf his need was taken care of. Shall we resign that to the archives of an Old Testament story with no relevance for today? Or shall we believe that is the same God and the same ability and the same love that he has for you that he had for Elijah. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. Will his grace be insufficient for me? Others who are wealthier and wiser than me shall want, but I shall not want.
But what David in essence is trying to tell us is this: That we can say that I have all things not because I have money in the bank. Not because I am skilled to do certain things that might enable me to look after myself. I have all things that I need because the Lord is my shepherd, not because of my own intrinsic ability, but because the Lord is my shepherd.
The rest of the Psalm introduces us to a variety of pictures that illustrate the profound true confidence and hope that we as believers in Jesus Christ must demonstrate as we live the life of faith. If we lack this kind of confidence, we are living at the level of mediocrity. Look at the rest of the Psalm: “He makes me to lie down in green pastures.”
I have traveled to Israel more times than I can remember. I have traveled at different times of the year. I have traveled in the winter when hills are green and verdant with grass. I have traveled in the summer time when the hills of Judea take on that California gold color. The sheep have difficulty grazing. When David says, he leads me to green pastures, he’s saying that God’s provision for me—I shall not want nourishment. He will nourish me in a way that is not seasonal, but he will take me to green pasture all the time. God’s care for me will be constant and abundant. I shall never want for that which I need. There will be no summer periods in my life, when I find it difficult scrounging for food. The Psalmist declares we can have the confidence that God will supply every need of ours. He will nourish us.
I shall not want for refreshment, because, “he leads me beside still waters” and there I will find repose, refreshment, cleansing and calm. It’s a picture of a desert oasis. Not the raging waves of strife, but the peaceful waters of holy love. He will lead me to a sense of calmness, serenity, joy, and peace. They shall be an integral part of my life. I shall not want for restoration because he restores my soul when I am down trodden.
When I am sorrowful he will revive my soul. When it is sinful, he will sanctify it. When it is weak, he will strengthen it. He restores my soul. He will never let it languish. I shall not want for direction. “He guides in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” Those paths bring the sheep directly to their destination. Albeit, he points out that there will be times when we will have go through the deep ravines of life, when life will be difficult and hard. We will have to traverse the steep, narrow pathways that will lead us into the dark chasms of the valley.
On more than one occasion outside of Jerusalem, I have taken a walk along the windy road that leads to Jericho. At times I have to watch my footing lest I slide off the path and down into the ravine where there is darkness. Because the narrowness of the ravine casts such a shadow on the valley that one walks through the valley of the shadow. Even though I walk through the valley, I will fear no evil, because you are with me. God will be ever present no matter what difficulty or problem. God promises that he will never leave you and never forsake you. You have no cause for anxiety.
Verse 4 has often been sung by many on a death-bed, helping to make the dark valley lighter. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death”, David reminds us that death is but a shadow. Anyone who has done elementary physics will understand that wherever there is a shadow there is bound to be light somewhere, else there can never be a shadow! Death is not the goal, but the passage to life. The valley of the shadow of death is simply the sting that has been removed from death. Only the shadow remains.
There is a lovely story that comes from Scotland of an old shepherd dying and a minister who comes to visit him. The old man lay dying. He was afraid of death. The minister asked him if he’d ever watched the wind blow a cloud across the valley. “Oh,” said the old man, “many a time I have stood on the hillside and watched the wind blow the clouds across.” “When the shadow of that cloud came racing across the heather towards you, said the minister, were you afraid?” The old shepherd drew himself slightly from his pillow and cried, what, afraid of a shadow? Jamie has covenanters’ blood in his veins, and he has never been afraid of anything. He will never be afraid of a shadow.” It was then that the minister turned in his Bible to Psalm 23. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not be afraid.” This old man who had been afraid experienced the truth of God’s word and was encouraged.
When I was a child, my sister had the habit of doing things with her hands. Then she would do the sound effects. She would cast a dog’s head on the wall and she would bark. But it never occurred to me to be afraid of a shadow of a dog; I recognized the shadow of a dog cannot destroy me. Neither can the shadow of death destroy you. It is but a shadow. Even then Christ goes with you. At this point of danger, the shepherd no longer goes before but alongside to escort.
The shepherd is armed—your rod and your staff they comfort me. The rod is equivalent to an Irish club. But a staff is a club. It’s used to hit someone you don’t like. But in the case of Psalm 23, it is to ward off wild animals. So your shepherd is armed to keep any danger away from you. The staff is the crook from which he pulls you back from the edge of the ravine so you are well protected.
I shall not want or I shall not lack protection. Verse 5 says, “you prepare a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. I shall not lack provision. For you anoint my head with oil and my cup overflows.” In verses 5 and 6, the shepherd imagery is replaced by one of greater intimacy. It is enough to survive but Christ makes us triumph. Here we can see God’s infinite resources in the worst of situations!! Even though enemies gather to look on, God prepares a table for you. Your enemies look on from afar. Your head is anointed with oil. Then, I shall not want or I shall not lack security. For surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. This is the confidence of the Psalmist.
Henry Ward Beecher has said this Psalm has sung courage to the army of the disappointed. It has poured balm and consolation into the heart of the sick, of captives in dungeons, of widows in their griefs, of orphans and their loneliness. It has visited the prisoner and broken his chains. It will go on singing to your children, to my children and to their children through all generations of time. That’s true. But the question I would pose this morning is this: How much do you really believe it? Will you live at this level of confidence? Will you walk around with your head high and not drooping because you are a son/daughter of the King? Will you dare to ask for miracles in your life and expect that God will answer them, if they are what you need?
Let me close with a story. Two weeks ago I sat in a chapel in Lagos, Nigeria. Three days before the end of my course that I was teaching the Provost had informed me that the school was within 3 days of closure, because they needed the next year’s rent of $270,000.00.
I asked him, “Where on earth are you going to get the money?!”
He said, “I have no idea. But I believe that we need to be here. We are the only inter-denominational Seminary in the entire city of 15 million people. Where there is so little leadership training and theological education going on. In a place that is experiencing miracle after miracle of people turning to Christ. If ever there is a need, I would suggest that this is one of the world’s greatest needs. There is nowhere better to put your money.”
I said to him as a typical Westerner, “If you were asking me for $20,000 or $30,000, something within grasp that we could manage; I could easily prep for that. But it’s hard to pray for something so impossible and ludicrous as $270,000.00 when you don’t have a penny yourself? I don’t know too many people who would just be able to give $270,000.00!”
He went into the chapel that day and invited his students to pray. They prayed with fervor, believing with a holy boldness that God was going to provide their needs. I’m sitting in a corner thinking, “you know, you shouldn’t ask God for such a huge amount of money. Small amounts are O.K.” On the third day, someone had given the gift of half of it. Some businessman in the United States had given them half of it. So they told the owner that they had 6 months that they could pay.
“Can we stay?” He said yes.
I know in 6 months again they will be praying, living always on the edge—living the life of faith, but living it with that bold confidence. I believe that is God’s call on the Church today. To be able to say with all our hearts and to mean it, “the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.” Believe it for the Church. Believe it for the world, for it really is true.
