Psalm 23:4-5 — Carl Armerding

The Shepherd’s Care and the Satisfaction of Psalm 23

Verses 1 to look at verses Friday morning. We began our study of this psalm was through the shepherd himself. For that we went to the 10th chapter of John. It seems to be exactly that. Also noted how as we move along in the psalm that this results in perfect satisfaction.

It leads to a very lovely scene in verses 2 of still waters or the waters of quiet that it's not so much a question of eating and drinking there as it is to enjoy the atmosphere of that wonderful provision that the Lord has made for us.

It's right in with what we have in the New Testament where the Lord invites us to come and rest. Come unto me all ye that labor and the heavy laden and I give you rest. So we stress the quiet time in connection with that.

The Restoration of the Soul and the Paths of Righteousness

Then we pointed out to how he restores our soul. The application of that we went to the closing verses of James official to see the number of different ways in which the Lord restores our soul. It's interesting to observe that we're living in a day when great emphasis is being placed upon the soul of man.

This is indicated by the number of words that begin with the syllable psych like psychology, psychosomatic, psychiatry and so on. Psych is simply the Greek word for soul and we find that the number of words beginning with that syllable have greatly multiplied in the years just closing.

So that men are beginning to realize that there's something that needs attention besides the body and how wonderful that the scriptures give us this very thing. In the close of verse three leading us in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake and we pointed out that the reason why the word is in the plural here the paths of righteousness is perhaps to cover every activity in which we might engage as human beings.

Our home life, our school life, our business life, our social life, whatever it might be come under the heading of the paths of righteousness. Unless you should think that this is a sort of an austere experience let me just remind you that in the book of Proverbs we read that the path of the just is of the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.

Yes, the path of the just one. The word is in the singular number in the original language but that's the one whom we follow. And the perfect day by the way is not sunset. The perfect day is we lived in San Diego, California some years ago.

There was a lady living just east there, Carrie Jacobs Bond who wrote that lovely lyric, when you come to the end of a perfect day. When I got to considering that I said to myself the perfect day has no end.

It's high noon. It's the brightness of the full noonday sun that shines upon one in the perfect day. And this is the kind of experience we have as we follow the Lord Jesus. And you notice it says here, and this is an interesting qualification, His, the way this is put in the Spanish language.

I think that every one of us who have had the privilege of learning more than one language ought to take advantage of the variation of the various languages. I think I pointed out one yesterday in John 3, 16 in the French.

That it not only says His only begotten Son but Son Fils Unique. That's His unique Son. God has given to us His unique Son. Well here again is a very interesting observation in connection with this verse in the Spanish language.

Instead of reading for His namesake, the Spaniard says, Por el amor de su nombre, it's for the love of His name. For the love of His name. And I enjoy these variations as I read the scriptures in the various languages.

And any of you who have had the privilege of being born in a bilingual home, as I did, should take advantage of this because it takes all of these languages to give us the real fullness of meaning that we find in these terms.

And then just to consider this, for the love of His name. Beloved, that ought to settle every question as to where I can go and what I can do. Can I do this for His namesake? Years ago my dear father brought that to my attention.

There are no specific commandments to tell you about certain things that you can't do. For instance, in those boyhood days when, like every boy I suppose, the temptation to smoke that first cigarette.

And there was the first dance to go to. And although I didn't know any scripture which says I shall not smoke cigarettes, it wasn't there. And there wasn't anyone that said that I shouldn't go to a social dance.

But my father pointed out that the way to answer those questions was to ask this one. Would it honor His name? Would it glorify Him if I do this? And so this is the way we settle a lot of these questions.

If you want a question, if you want a direct text of scripture for everything, well of course then you can almost make a book to suit yourself. But not so when you don't need it. When you walk in the path of righteousness for His namesake.

Oh beloved, let's remember this. When we attempt to engage in certain things in our everyday life, will this really glorify the Lord? Will it honor to His name? I remember when I first went to the mission field as a young man of 20.

My father took me to the steamship setting sail for Central America. He looked at me and he said, some of the money that I could give you to relieve you of all financial anxiety, at least for the next year going into this new field, I've given you a good name.

My father has given me a good name. Reputation for honesty and integrity in the community in which we live. And I've been able to use this with my own children. And how much greater is the heritage, beloved, for those of us who know the Lord Jesus Christ.

To let the honor and glory of His name determine where we go, what we do, what we say. Yes. And even while these things could come in to these paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Now so much by way of introduction.

The Presbyterian pastor we had was a lad of 12. He always labeled the divisions of his sermon. And then of course he preached his sermon, and now a few words by way of application. And finally by way of conclusion, and we were always ready to conclude with him.

But he is very nicely divided. But now let's take a look at verse 4 in our psalm. You notice that there's quite a change of atmosphere here. Here though I walk to the valley of the shadow of death. Very often this is limited in people's thinking to some serious experience that they have or the closing hours of their lives as though this is the only time it applies.

Humanity’s Universal Valley of Death

And they get a rather shock when you point out to them that they've been in this valley ever since they were born. You came into the valley of the shadow of death when you were born. And this leads me to make this remark that these places which are mentioned in the psalm are not stations along the road that you leave behind, like the green pastures and the still waters.

Yes I enjoyed them, but let's move on to the next station, the paths of righteousness. Let's move on to the next station, and you come into the valley of the shadow. In some mysterious way all of these things, shall I say, run concurrently.

It's possible that even though we are in the valley of the shadow of death to enjoy the green pastures and the waters of quietness because it's his presence that makes it just that, you see. But let us look at this expression, the valley of the shadow of death.

One commentator has pointed out to us that the word in the original, translated the shadow of death, is one of the gloomiest, darkest that you can possibly imagine. And you ask yourself, how in the world did it ever get this way?

I remember this as a question I used to ask myself when men and women were dying in the neighborhood where I was born and brought up. Death was such a mysterious thing to me. I remember going with my mother to the corpse of a policeman who had endeared himself to all of us boys and girls in the neighborhood where we lived.

Everybody knew Mr. Waters. It's true he wore a club at his side, but he never used it on any of us. He was the kind of a man that could keep order without a club. And then one day Mr. Waters died. And Mother, of course, had to go and comfort Mrs. Waters.

And I went with her. And I was mystified. I came home, I said to my mother, I said, Mama, how did all of this start? And she had a ready answer from the word of God. Because the answer is found in the fifth chapter of Romans, by one man.

Oh, how much damage one man can do. By one man, sin entered into the world and death, and so death hath passed upon or passed through to all men. That's how it got here. You see where the blame lies. By one man, that's how it got here.

And so the shadow comes in. There it is, and it's shadowing you and me right now. We're in it. The valley of the shadow of death. What a contrast to the green pastures and the waters of quietness. But here it is.

And one has only to pick up his daily newspaper to look over the obituary column if he needed no further proof. That would be it, wouldn't it? And so far as I know, every community of any size that I've ever lived in has had its cemetery.

There it is. You're reminded of it. And then, of course, when it enters the circle of your own family, as it has my own on more than one occasion, you're made very much aware of this, that you're living in the valley of the shadow of death.

Christ’s Presence in the Valley of Death

Thank God for what follows here. You know, sometimes we think these Old Testament saints lived in a sort of an obscure dispensation. But not so with the psalmist when he said, Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I'll fear no evil.

Why? The one who was just my leader, leading beside the still waters and leading me in the path of righteousness, now, as it were, just steps back a step. And instead of becoming my leader, he becomes my companion.

Now I'm with him. Oh, this is wonderful, isn't it? To think that the one who just now was in the forefront is now at my side. The one who was in the vanguard now becomes my bodyguard. This is tremendous, isn't it?

And this is what enables us Christians to face that which people look upon as the king of terrors. It's something entirely different. You say, Yes, but why should it make so much difference to have him with you?

Because he'd been through the thing. He went right through the thing. And he faced it in all its grim reality. As we were pointing out last evening, when he faced it there in the Garden of Gethsemane, he said, Oh, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. I like sometimes to just point out to people that what the Lord Jesus faced there was not simply what we call natural, ordinary death. He died a cruel death.

The cross of Christ, the Prince of Darkness, was there in all of his power. And when you see the word darkness in the Scriptures, it implies not only the absence of light, but positive opposition to the light.

When the Scripture says, Light is coming to the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. Darkness, I repeat, friends, is something more than the absence of light.

That, after all, is a negative definition, isn't it? The absence of light. It's positive opposition to it. And that's why one of the names we give to Satan is the Prince of Darkness. And your Lord and mine went into it in its terrible depths, when on the cross of Christ, not only was there physical darkness, when for three long hours he hung upon that cross, and the sun refused to shine.

Oh, friends, that was only symbolic of the terrible darkness into which the Lord Jesus went for you and for me. How well did the poet put it. None of the ransomed ever knew how deep were the waters of the cross that the Lord went through ere he found his sheep.

Christ’s Suffering Foretold in Psalm 18

We get some idea of this, perhaps, in the 18th Psalm. Would you mind turning back a page or two in your Bible to Psalm 18? And look at this. Well, I grant you that primarily this was the psalmist's own experience, as the title of this psalm tells us.

But I'm sure that he's speaking here prophetically for the Lord Jesus, when he says here in verse 4, Psalm 18, verse 4, The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid.

The sorrows of hell or Sheol compassed me about, the snares of death prevented me. You read this psalm and you get some idea of what the Lord Jesus really endured upon the cross of Calvary. All the forces of darkness, Satan with all of his hosts was there.

And that is why he can be such a wonderfully comforting companion in that which otherwise frightens people. As one who has faced death more than once in his lifetime, and I have, and doubtless some of the rest of you have also.

And when I say faced death, I'm not simply talking about a sick man, because on the mission field, together with another missionary who is now in glory, we faced a hostile mob. We made the great mistake of going to their town in what they called Holy Week.

And mind you, it is an awful sin to preach the gospel on Holy Week in this particular town. But we had the audacity to do it. And as a result, we were pelted with everything imaginable, stones, human waste, what have you, just pelted us.

I managed to dodge a few of the stones as they came our way. Caught one of them just before it hit my companion. And after about 20 minutes of that, they suddenly stopped as if someone had ordered them to quit.

And we moved on to our apartment, our lodgings. And they took revenge on us there by pelting the roof, the tile roof with stones, until the next morning we could look up and the whole roof was full of holes.

Thirty years later, I was back in that same community and preaching the gospel, and I noticed a man in the audience whose eyes fairly bore through me. I like eye contact, but I didn't appreciate it that day.

There was a bouquet before me on the table, and I kept dodging it to get away from his eye, but I couldn't. And after the meeting, he was the first man to come up. And he said to me, Are you in Colinas de Santa Barbara?

That was the name of the town. Thirty years ago, the year 1915, I said yes. He said, Do you remember being stoned there? I said, I could never forget it. He said, Well, I was one of those that stoned you.

And the way he said it, I thought he'd come to finish the job. I looked at him for a moment wondering. He said, Some time later you came into another town, Santa Cruz de Yacoa, and you preached there that night.

He said, I well remember the text on which you preached. And now in thirty years, you know, you have to forget what you did thirty years before, but this man hadn't. I said, Well, what did I preach on?

He said, You preached on the third and fourth chapters of Romans. I thought for a moment, Yes, I did. He said, Brother, as you continued to preach, God was speaking to me. And as a result of that sermon, I came to know the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal Savior.

I've been waiting thirty years to tell you. You know, I know it's only for ladies to embrace each other, but we men did. As a matter of fact, this is quite common in Central America. We have what we call an abrazo, and we find the same is true in Spain today with our dear brethren in Spain.

And don't get me started on Spain because things are really happening in Spain these days. The Lord is really blessing the work. New assemblies are being established. I can remember when it was impossible to preach there with the doors open in Spain.

But today, thank God, these doors are open and we're able to preach. But we can now embrace each other in the face as we did that day of brotherhood in Christ. But coming back to my subject, I said to this brother, I said, Brother, when you were stoning us, I said, what did we look like?

Tell me, what sort of impression did you get? Well, he said, it just seemed like you didn't care. He said, you stood there as if, well, this is part of it. And we didn't seem to make an impression on you.

Well, he didn't know just how our hearts were fluttering at the time. But the Lord evidently gave us the grace to show these people a calm in the face of imminent danger. And he said it impressed us. He said, after you and your companion drove away that day, we were impressed with the calm and poise that you had.

Facing Death Without Fear

To me, dear friends, this is a perfect illustration of what we have in this psalm. I will fear. O beloved, if that time comes, if the Lord tarries a while yet, perhaps some of us who are older, we have to go through what some of the theologians call the article of death.

I hope we can go through it just that way. My dear father was an example to me in this. Wednesday night before he died in Winslow, Arizona, he said to my sister, who now lives in the Claremont home in California, he said, Ben, I don't understand it.

Why doesn't the Lord call it? But she said, Dad, you can't barge in there any old time you like. You've just got to wait your time. And the next Lord's Day morning, it came at five o 'clock, and in he went.

As you know, Dad never showed one moment of fear, not one moment. To him it was going to be a joyous entering in to the presence of the Lord. And in addition to the wonderful experience of seeing the Lord Jesus for the first time, there will be the joy of reunion with those of our loved ones that have gone on before.

Oh, beloved, thank God for this passage of scripture. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou. You notice instead of talking about the shepherd, he's now talking to him.

And thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Now this word translated rod here is translated scepter in Psalm 45. The scepter thy kingdom is a right scepter. It's the symbol of authority, real authority, real authority.

Notice, friends, that when he died, that was actually emphasized even by his enemies. I was reading through the fifteenth chapter of Luke one day with this in mind, and I was surprised to find out that in that fifteenth chapter of Mark, I should say, not Luke, fifteenth chapter of Mark, you have at least six references to the royalty of the Lord Jesus.

The king of the Jews. They wanted it changed. They said, right, not the king of the Jews, but did you say I'm the king of the Jews? Pilate says, what I've written, I've written. Thank God for that. There he is.

And as the king, the scripture tells us in the second chapter of the epistles of the Hebrews that inasmuch as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, he himself likewise took part of the same.

And notice the reason why. That through death, he might destroy or annul him that had the power of death. That is the devil. This is an arresting statement, isn't it? That the devil is said to have the power of death.

Now we have at least three different words for power in the original language of the New Testament. One of them simply means authority. That's not the word used in Hebrews. Another one is found in Romans 1 .16 where the gospel of Christ is the power of God.

And there is the Greek word upon which we found our English word dynamite. That's not the word used in Hebrews 2. The word used in Hebrews 2 is the word kratos, which we use in combinations in such words as democrat, plutocrat, aristocrat.

It speaks of might which could be exercised apart from authority altogether. And this is the sense in which the devil is said to be, to have the power or might of death. Like a villain or like a bandit who holds you up at the point of a pistol, puts it in your side, he says, this is a stick-up.

Yes, he's got the might of death. He's got the power of death. But he hasn't got the authority. And when the Lord Jesus Christ died, he annulled him that had the power of death. That is the devil. For what purpose?

That he might deliver us who through fear of death are a lifetime subject to bondage. This is it. You know, this is what makes the deathbed of a Christian so different, doesn't it? People say, how come?

Here's a man facing the inevitable, as they say, and yet he does so with a look of joy and peace on his face. He's going home. And who's afraid to go home? Those who are absent from the body, absent from the Lord, were at home in the body, were absent from him.

But when we're absent from the body, we're at home with the Lord. Who's afraid to go home? And all of this seems to be locked up in this verse, you see. I'll fear no evil for thou art with me, thy rod or thy scepter, and thy staff, the staff speaking of that which supports.

We need his support. And we never needed more, perhaps, than when people are looking on just to see how a Christian dies. I've had that experience more than once. I can testify to your friends that I have an answer for every atheist that I've ever met.

You can't duplicate the deathbed. Who knows the Lord is with him. And then this leads on, as we have in the next verse here, to a prepared table. This is interesting, isn't it? That immediately in connection with this reference to death, we should have a table mentioned.

The Lord’s Table and Fellowship in the Presence of Enemies

How suggestive, isn't it, of the way in which the Lord Jesus connected these two things together. Because in what we call the Lord's table, what the Scripture calls the Lord's table, we have the remembrance of his death.

And here we find these two things brought together in this connection. The valley of the shadow of death, the table of communion. You see, earlier in the psalm, we had provision made for our hunger and our thirst.

But this is different. And I point this out to any who may have never noticed it, that the Lord has something else in view for you besides the satisfying the pangs of hunger. I have frequently said, and I'll repeat it this morning, that I believe the primary purpose of eating is not merely to sustain the body or to satisfy the pangs of hunger.

The primary purpose of eating is fellowship. That's why Eve, after she took the forbidden fruit, she didn't sit down and eat it alone. She gave to her husband with her. It was a natural thing to do. Because this was the way things started.

This was to be a time of fellowship. This is why, dear friends, we enjoy sitting down and eating with each other. And this is brought up to its highest point when we come to what the Scripture calls the Lord's table.

And he himself says, how wonderful, isn't it? Thou prepares the table before me. And notice that this is not heaven. It's in the presence of my enemies. They are all around us. And we're never more aware of it, perhaps, than when we're preparing for this.

To be able to concentrate the mind on this particular thing. As a lad, I was deeply impressed in the Presbyterian Church, which we attended at the time. I was a boy about 10. And then this Friday night before the Communion Sunday, which was observed about once a quarter in that church, on the Friday night before, they had what was known as a preparatory service.

I learned afterward that in the old country, those who attended that service were given a coin, which they presented on the following Lord's Day, which entitled them to participate in the Lord's Supper, because they had been at the preparatory service the Friday night before.

Getting ready for this communion with the Lord himself, in the presence of our enemies, because there's so many things come in to hinder your communion and mine, don't they? There's the cares of the week that we've just about finished, and then there's the cares of the week ahead of us.

In a business world such as we live in now, oh, how many distractions there are. We have all sorts of things continue against us when we try to get ready for the remembrance of our Lord. He's able to silence them all and give to us that lovely communion, fellowship with himself.

And communion simply means having something in common with somebody else. And you know the mystery of it is this, that the Apostle could say as he does in 1 Corinthians the first chapter, God is faithful who hath called us into the fellowship, into the communion of Jesus Christ his Son.

God asking us to participate with him in that which he enjoys. That's what communion is. It's enjoying what God enjoys. This is tremendous, to think that you and I should have the privilege of enjoying what God enjoys.

That's what real fellowship is. This is what this prepared table is all about. It prepares the table before me in the presence of my enemies. And then in connection with this we have this lovely thought of having our heads anointed with oil.

Anointing with the Spirit and the Overflowing Cup

A fresh anointing of the Spirit of God. You know some of us are quite satisfied with the fact that we've been baptized with the Holy Spirit when we were baptized into the body of Christ as we read in 1 Corinthians chapter 12.

But you know St. Paul also speaks of the supply of the Spirit in Philippians chapter 1. And I believe there is such a thing as a renewal in this way. And how this does renew us when we come together in this way to remember him together with our fellow saints at his table to have the head anointed with oil.

Somebody says yes the head needs it because that's where a lot of our troubles begin. But I think dear friends it's not only that because from the head it can flow down to even down to our feet. As we learn from another one of the Psalms it flows down.

The precious ointment goes down even to the skirts of the garment. Beloved let us covet that this might be our experience any and every time that we come together to remember him. Just this last thought here.

This of course is so subjective. My cup runneth over. Your cup after all might not be a very big one. Thank God it has been one's experience again and again to find that a meeting such as this really results in this wonderful experience that our cup runneth over.

And what do you do with an overflowing cup? Well you share it with somebody else. This I believe should be one of the things that comes out of our morning meetings as we remember our blessed Lord. The cup should be overflowing.

Sometimes young people come to us and say would you mind giving me a few little ideas as to how to go about witnessing for the Lord. Just get your heart so full of him that you can't contain him. It will come out.

Yes indeed. I remember the night after I was baptized I was on my way back to the job. My father was superintendent of the shop and I was working upstairs in the office. I was wondering just how I was going to handle this situation because I felt I should be saying something about it.

But the enemy had me persuaded that I was such a weak vacillating individual that I better not say anything about it. Just keep it to yourself. But you know, the first man I met was the man under whom I worked, a Virginian by the name of Thomas Evans.

The first thing he said to me, he said, well kid, what you doing this morning? I said, Mr. Evans, I was baptized last night. Last night I almost choked on my own words. I wasn't going to say a thing about it.

But my cup was running over. It was running over. So I had an opportunity to witness to my boss. And that night when the big boss came out, who was an atheist by the way, chomping a big cigar with a hat back on the back of his head, he said, well Evans, anything new today?

I said, Mr. Evans, the kid here rode the goat last night. He was referring to what they do in some of the lodges. But again, it was my privilege standing there face to face with the big boss, the president of the concern.

He said, you're rather young to be riding the goat. I said, Mr. Wood, I was baptized last night in the name of the Father and the Son. You can imagine how this 15 year old boy went out of that office that night, full of the thought that he had made my cup.

Friends, this is the way it ought to be. You shouldn't have to pump this out. It should just flow over you know just of itself. This is one of the wonderful things of living in such close fellowship with the Lord that you can say, Thou art with me.

In closing, let us turn to hymn number 202. Hymn number 202. What a fellowship. What a joy divine, leaning on the everlasting arms. What a blessedness. What a peace is mine, leaning on the everlasting arms.

Number 202. And let us rise to sing. Ride with us, till Jesus comes and forever.