Psalm 23:1 — Carl Armerding

It's such a joy standing up here and hearing your wonderful singing. It really throws your heart, doesn't it, Brother Andrews?

It really does, and we're going to have the ladies again sing the fourth stanza, and then the men the fifth, and then each one of you can hear each other sing. It's really lovely. All the ladies on the fourth, at this time, men joining on the chorus.

At this time, we're going to ask Mr. Hurley Dixon to come and sing a special number for us.

Satan should stop it, though trials should come. Let this blessed assurance control that Christ has regarded my helpless estate and has shed his own blood for my soul. If I could sing like that, my wife never would get to speak to me.

Some say she doesn't anyway, but really she does. That's just wonderful to stand up here and hear that great music. About the time I said amen, he said, let's have the ladies sing the next verse. But you were so good, I said amen anyway after you finished.

It's not only great just to see you out there and to see the expression on your faces when you're singing, but even when somebody like Hurley's singing, to watch somebody like T .K. Duncan is a real blessing, and the rest of you, too.

I don't make out of every two times I open my mouth. Now, T .K., it's all right for you to react when somebody's singing, but not when I'm making the announcement. But last night, we didn't have a microphone, and I said, anyone in the back that can't hear me, please nod your head.

And that is stupid. How was I going to nod their head if they couldn't hear me? And that shows what kind of audience we have at Whistler. So if we catch you sleeping, now, you'd be real careful. You've been a great group.

You really were last night, I guess because we got some good sleep is the reason we think that. But I think you were tired. You just did wonderful, and you started out the day real well, and we appreciate that kind of cooperation.

Now, if you want to hear Hurley Dickson sing again before his regularly scheduled time, which I don't know when that will be, but he will be singing out on the lawn this afternoon at our lawn service at four o 'clock, so you'll get a chance.

What are you looking at, Brother Oxendine? The weather? We thought it was cool weather, so we could have it outside. So don't worry about the rain. If it does rain, we'll be inside here just the same.

Lunch at about 1230, and I wonder how many who are visiting with us, who are either staying down at a motel or coming in from the city, how many of you will be eating lunch with us? Would you raise your hands so we can tell the dietician?

We'd love to have you over to any visiting who will be eating lunch with us. It must be a bad bunch. Nobody will eat with us. Well, we've got enough to fill it up anyway, so we'd like to have you if you want to.

Now, let us bow to a word of prayer. We're going to ask our good friend and brother Art Miller from Atlanta if he'll lead our hearts together in praise and prayer. Brother Miller. Now, this being the launch day, there will not be the full schedule, of course, of recreation, but beginning tomorrow, we assure you there will be as much as you want to do to keep you busy in many different ways.

But there will be one type this afternoon that most of you will enjoy shortly after lunch. We wouldn't like to have our quiet time, and so you can enjoy a horizontal exercise, just laying straight out like this, enjoying some deep nasal breathing, sometimes called snoring, and there was plenty of it, I'm sure, last night.

And we hope that the parents will try. I shouldn't even say try, but that's what it is sometimes. But we hope they will keep the little ones also in for a nap. They'll feel better if you do, and the older folks, like myself, will also get more rest.

So, that's in the afternoon, except for Jim's announcement, and he will keep a few of you busy in another activity. There will be a hike for the children ages 5 through 12. They will meet out front if you want them to go, and there will be a good group to take them on a nice hike all down behind us here through a beautiful area where they pick up wildflowers and stones, and they give them prizes, and they enjoy that.

So, that's at 3 o 'clock. Now, this morning I said the nursery went up to 3, and the children's meetings were 5 through 12. Well, that was another boo-boo. We left out the 4-year-olds. We don't leave out anybody at Bristol.

I should have said the 4-year-olds have the privilege of going with or soever they will. If they prefer the nursery, they may go to the nursery. If they want to go to the children's meeting, Mr. Murphy will take them and persevere and really make something out of them.

So, if you want to send your 4-year-old down there, you may. But the hike is at 3 o 'clock, and the lawn service, not L-O-N-G. We try not to have too many of those L-A-W-N. The lawn service is just down the hill to your right as you go down the steps.

Please bring your blanket or large beach towels or newspapers or whatsoever to sit on, and we believe you'll enjoy the informal type service of getting better acquainted. Please wear your name tag. It's important.

We want you to get to know a lot of people. And at mealtime, don't just go now and sit over in a corner somewhere at the same table, way off from anybody else, and then say people are not friendly to me.

We like to move around at Bristol, and move from one table to another. Just go and flop, and somebody else will come and flop, and then you fellowship. I don't say we have floppy fellowship, but I mean we have good fellowship around the table, and you can call it round-table fellowship if you'd like to.

Help us out with that. Ray Ruth is in charge of taping all these messages. Did you come out far enough that you can see me? There you are. He will be glad to provide you with any or all the tapes of all these messages without you even touching a button to a cassette.

And he does it just about as economically as you could do it yourself. And he does one about every four minutes or something like that. So if you want tapes, you have a good day. Let us know if there's any way we can help you.

Jim, can you hear this? Jim, listen. There are good singers here. You'll be here right after dinner for our choir practice. We're going to have a choir sing tonight. And a lot of times people say, well, I didn't get an invitation.

Well, the only invitation you get is a public invitation to everyone. It's a volunteer choir, and we'd like as many that can sing to be here and have a part in this choir. It's a wonderful time of blessing, and you really bless the hearts of the people.

So if you've got a voice, use it for the glory of God, and especially you men that are so bashful that I have to get after two or three times before I get you up here. How about coming this afternoon right after dinner, and we'll work down some of that meal that you ate, and we will keep you over a half hour if you're here.

Now, if you straggle in little by little, it can take three-quarters of an hour. But if you're here, I know Beverly now. She has a right to bust the line this afternoon, to go in front of the line. So there you are, Beverly.

I cleared it with everybody because I want the piano player here to be sure. Last year she got stuck at the back of the line, and I waited and waited, and everybody else was waiting, and she was still down there eating, and she would quit until she finished it all.

So anyway, Beverly, we're going to give you a head start on it. So let's remember that right after lunch, choir practice, and we'll have a good time singing together. And so this is your invitation. Don't expect me to come up and say, how about you singing?

If you're that good a singer, I guess we don't want you in our choir. You're just too professional for us. So this is your invitation. Come and join us, and we'll have a wonderful time. Even if you're a Yankee, we'll let that Yankee promote come off, because I'm from the Midwest, and they've just about got it out of me.

I don't know if Dick's still working a little bit with my accent, but we'll work on it some more for the next few years. Number 40 will be our next hymn, just before our message this morning. Number 40, you know, I couldn't help but think that when the brother of Dick was saying about Ray reproducing these messages in four minutes, and I thought of how long it takes John Phillips to put it across first.

Brother Phillips, you can get me tonight. I know he will anyway. Four minutes, John, your message is finished. All together now, singing number 40. The fifth stanza, the fifth stanza, number 40.

It has been a privilege for several years in the past to have our dear brother,.

Dr. Carl Armading, come to Bristol and minister the word of God. We weren't able to get him one or two times. When we wanted to, he still has a very busy schedule, and many, many conferences would like to have him, but many, many of you said, please get Dr. Carl Armading back to Bristol again, and the Lord has provided us that and met our desires and requests, and what a joy it is to have him to minister the word again to us this week at Bristol.

Dr. Carl Armading from Dallas, Texas. Dr. Carl, it's a joy and a pleasure to have you back with us at Bristol. The Lord bless you. Thank you. Let's repeat those words, that it is a joy and a pleasure to me to be back here at Bristol after all these years.

I did last Lord's Day when I passed the fourth score and five mark, and I won't have very much longer around here for Lord Tarris, but we thank God for the strength that he gives us so we can say in the language of Scripture, I have the privilege, God, this week in Friday, and on those four mornings I would like to speak on the 23rd, which is that way.

The Lord as the Shepherd of His People

In fact, I suppose most of you know the psalm by heart. If the whole audience this morning would join in repeating the 23rd psalm from the time-honored King James Version, that's good enough for the Apostle Paul, good enough for David.

Let's repeat Psalm 23 from the King James Version. He made me say this was a psalm that belonged to the Israelites, and the poet, of course, was an Israelite. Now he's got claim as a prior claim, but by this time, in the light of the New Testament, we can say that this is public domain.

The Lord Jesus Christ can claim this psalm, even though what I shall have to say about the psalm has to do mainly with God's people who have come in here who are still without Christ, that you, too, may learn to savor the psalmist.

It's a wonderful thing to make a statement like that. It's quite distinct from some other statements which people make when they try to sum up their creeds. They say, well, you know, I believe in a...

I remember an answer my father gave to one man who made that statement. For years, the man had been an atheist. In fact, he was an uncle of mine. He was an atheist. Then he joined the Masonic Lodge, and he claimed that he now believed in a supreme being.

He came to my father and he said, well, Ernest, you know, I'm making progress. I now believe in a supreme being. He sat on the back and commended for this. He said, Gus, even the devils believe in shudder.

And that put him in his place. Almighty Maker, you still haven't come up to the level of this. It has certain implications. It's a wonderful thing I say to him, because when I make a statement like this, I'm confessing that I wanted his sheep.

My dear brother was ministering to us, that we were as my shepherd. Coming into the world is implied in that statement. This is what he came for. And he himself gives us a very wonderful picture of it in the 15th chapter of the Gospel according to Luke, when he speaks about a man who's having a hundred sheep, and he loses one.

Does he not go after that which is lost in the wilderness until he finds it? And thank God for everyone who can say, yes, and he found me. And in this way, we can say the Lord is my shepherd. You'll notice if your Bible makes the distinction that the word Lord is in all capital letters, if it makes that distinction.

This means that in the original language, this is the equivalent of the word Jehovah, which, of course, to many Israelites, even to this day, is a word that they must not speak. The French have given a very interesting translation.

Every time this word Jehovah occurs in the original language, the French have given it the interpretation the Eternal One, the Eternal. Yes, he's the Eternal One who came down into this world in which you and I live, became incarnate, that he might rightfully bear this title of shepherd.

And he himself identifies himself, as you know, in the 10th chapter of John's Gospel. I'm going to ask you to turn to that, brothers. Keep your bookmark in Psalm 23, and let us turn to John chapter 10 to see how the Lord Jesus claims to be the one of whom the psalmist is singing here in Psalm 23.

You'll notice in the opening verse of the chapter, and it begins with an expression which is frequently repeated in this gospel according to John. In fact, I think it's found here something like 25 different times.

The Lord Jesus making this solemn affirmation. Early languages that are men, in Catholic translation of the Scripture, retain that in exactly those words. It's a solemn oath on his part when he says, Verily, verily, I say to you, He that entereth not in by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same as a thief and a robber, but he that entereth in by the door.

Now, what does the Lord mean by this? Well, down in the sixth verse we read that this parable, or this allegory, spake Jesus unto them, but they understood not what things there were which he spake unto them.

So that we're allowed to look at these words as being figurative. In other words, the Lord's not talking here about a door into a building, but he's talking of a place of entry into that which the Scripture here calls, and which he himself calls, the sheepfold, which I take it is a poetic expression for the nation of Israel.

And there are three things connected with that entry that I should like to call attention to in passage. In the first place, this shepherd had to come in as one of the tribe of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Judah, and not only that, he had to be born of a virgin.

And our blessed Lord fulfilled that Scripture to the letter. He was born of a virgin Mary. In that sense, he came in through the door. He fulfilled that Scripture. But not only did he fulfill that Scripture, but he fulfilled it in that he was born in a certain place.

According to the fifth chapter of the prophecy of Micah, he came and he was born in Bethlehem of Judea. And the prophecy fulfilled in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, and born in the town of Bethlehem.

But it's conceivable that somebody should come along someday and say, yes, I was also born of a virgin. We'd probably question that. And I was born in the town of Bethlehem. That could be possible. But there's another Scripture that our Lord fulfilled.

And this you find in the ninth chapter of Daniel, and which is summed up for us in the fourth chapter of Galatians, where it says, in the fullness of time, God sent forth his son, made of a woman. Galatians 4, verse 4.

Three lines of prophecy, which can never converge again. Over one person, in one place, and I believe this is a detailed explanation of what our Lord means when he says, he that came in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.

So, our Lord identifies himself with that. But somebody says, yes, that sounds very biblical and perhaps a little too theological for some. They say, you know, it's a little beyond me to think of all these Scriptures and all that sort of thing.

But our Lord gives another proof. Not an objective proof like these three that we've just now looked at, but he gives a subjective proof. Something that you feel within. And you notice this, please. It says here in the third verse of that tenth chapter of John, to him the porter openeth, and the sheep hear.

He calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he put forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him, so they know his. And you know, you don't have to be very old to distinguish one voice from another.

I remember when I was first born, came into the world, very proud of my firstborn son. One day my wife, when he was about three months old, she said, I have to do a little shopping on my own. I wonder if I could leave the baby with you while I go shopping.

She said, I'll put him to sleep, and if he wakes up while I'm gone, just pet him lightly, and he'll probably go off again. I said, you leave him to me. I'm the oldest of ten, and I know how to handle babies.

He hadn't been gone ten or fifteen minutes when I heard sounds coming from the bedroom. He didn't do as I was told. You just pet him very lightly. But you know, he bites as much as her. A ton of bricks coming down on him.

She also sometimes put her cheek next to his. I said, I'll just put that. But you know, even in these days of the flexomatic razors and all that kind of thing, very soon after a man's shaved, he can feel the bristles growing again.

And I guess the child does this too. The difference between his mother's soft cheek and mine, he knew the difference. I thought, well, now I better speak to him. And you know, I tried to put on my best tenor, and it didn't work.

Alongside of her, Mrs. Soprano, lay on my hand, and when she came in the door, this was the sound of greeting her. She just took him in her arms and said one or two words, and then I heard that, and pretty soon he was off to sleep.

Just one force from another, didn't he? A precocious child. No, it's just a garden variety. And so it is with the children of God. The Lord Jesus says they know his voice. And friends, this is the one thing that we are credited with in the fifth chapter of this same Gospel of John.

For again, the Lord Jesus Christ says, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but is cast from death unto life.

If you're a Christian this morning, you have heard the voice of the Son of God. You've heard it through his word. The Holy Spirit has made it good to you. And we can say on the authority of the book itself, we have heard the voice.

Christ the Good Shepherd and His Substitutionary Death

So here we have two lines of proof. In the fulfillment of scriptures, subjective proof, and that does something to our hearts when we hear his voice. But the Lord gives another proof in this tenth chapter of John that he is the Good Shepherd.

Will you please come down with me to the 11th verse of the chapter 10 and verse 11? I am the Good Shepherd. Exactly what he claims to be in the giving or the laying down of his life. And this is so important that he refers to it three times in this chapter.

Three times. Then you know again it says in the As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father, and I lay down my life. That's the same word in the original giving. I lay down my life for the sheep.

And that word for is important. You might say that's just a little preposition, but it's pregnant with meaning. It means that he laid down his life in place of the sheep. You say in place of the sheep?

Yes. Because every one of us as wandering sheep has forfeited our right to live. But he came in and he took what was our due. When he died upon the cross of Calvary and was forsaken, we were reminded in the earlier meeting this morning, he took what we deserved.

When he cried out in the anguish of his soul, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? That's what I deserve. That's what I deserve. People who question eternal punishment, they say, well, what do you think hell will be like?

That's what it'll be like. A man said to me, well, if I go to hell I'll have plenty of company. I said, don't be deceived, you'll be an awfully lonely man. And that doesn't mean that others are not going there.

But there's no such thing in hell as fellowship. Loneliness expressed by the Lord Jesus Christ when he said, thou forsaken me. Utter loneliness of it. My dear unsafe friend of you here this morning, may this be used of the Holy Spirit to awaken you to what it would mean to leave this life without the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.

An eternity of utter loneliness away from God. Life in place. He comes to this again in the 18th verse. He says, no man taketh it from me, of myself. That's what gives real value to this. He did it voluntarily, but it was a voluntary death.

He wasn't forced to do this. He did it voluntarily. I lay it down of myself. It may not look like it. When you look at the Gospels and you see the way he was handled in the judgment before Pilate and finally nailed to the cross, sometimes we lose the very force of our Lord's worship that he was going voluntarily.

He could say, I could ask of my Father to give me ten legions of angels right now. But he didn't, because he went there voluntarily. And you and I know, dear friends, that what we do voluntarily has far more value than things we're commanded to do.

Take a man with a loving wife. When he leaves home in the morning to go to business, he tells his wife, he says, I've left a list of things on my desk that I'd like you to do till I get back this evening.

It would wonder what those things he'd done, because that wasn't the way she did things. But you know, it was a wonderful thing to come home, never having made any such list, and to find one thing done, another thing done, another thing done.

You know, that's what makes a man want to bring home a bouquet of flowers or a bucket of chocolates, you know. And you get things done voluntarily like this. This is what the Lord Jesus did. Yes, he offered himself without stop.

There's still another note here. You notice it says in that 18th verse, he says, I have power to lay it down, to take it again. It was victorious, but he says, I'm going to take it up again. In the same book of John, he has the temple of his body, and in three days I will raise it up.

We challenge the world this morning, dear friends, to produce another character that could talk like that, and mean it, and glory, and say, I lay it down, I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.

Beloved, let us rejoice in the fact that we not only have a Savior who loved us and gave himself for us, but who's living today, seated at the right hand of the majesty in the heavens. All of these are proof that he is exactly what he claimed to be.

Personal Faith in the Shepherd

And this is the one of whom the psalmist is singing in that 23rd psalm when he says, the Lord is my shepherd. But you know, that statement implies a transaction. It implies that you've had something to do with him, and something to do with him personally.

We're not simply saying, our shepherd, but we're making it very personal and individual this morning. The Lord is so individual, that psalmist, and we can't be saved for somebody else. This is an individual matter.

Some years ago, living in the city of Albuquerque, one of our sisters in the assembly had an unsafe husband. I spoke to him about his soul. And he said, well, he said, I understand you call the ladies in your church sisters.

I said, yes, that's their official name. And he said, you men are called brethren. I said, that's it. Well, he said, see, I'm married to one of your sisters. I must be a brethren lord of your church. That sounded very clever.

I said to him, well, Charlie, well, you can find me a verse which says being a brethren lord to the church, or to some other Christian, will save your soul. I'll quit talking to you. The day came when Charlie Brinkley trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as his own personal savior.

No longer rejoicing in the fact that he could rejoice in that he was married to one of our sisters, for she was a choice woman. But he himself, a personal, individual believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.

To be able to say with the psalmist, the Lord is mine. Just thank God for all of this, that we have the proofs that he's exactly what he claimed to be. And we can go to the world with a statement like this.

I don't know of any other religion and teaching in some of the institutions where I have taught, like the Moody Bible Institute, Dallas Theological Seminary, and so on, Wheaton College, 14 years. And in the course of our teaching, we had to take up what was called comparative religions.

I often laugh at the term because, well, Christianity is not one of them, you know. We talk about comparative religions. In the first place, Christianity is a faith rather than a religion. Distinguish between all these others than Christianity.

Yet these others say do, and Christianity says it's done. You know, this is the great difference between Christianity and the other system that you know of. Not only that, dear friends, but you can be an adherent of any one of these other systems without ever having known the founder.

You could be a Mohammedan. You could be a Muslim without ever having known Mohammed. Perhaps the less you know about him, the better. And then you could be a Confucianist without ever having known Confucius.

You could be a Buddhist without ever having known Gautama. But you just can't be a Christian without knowing Christ. And that's what makes the first verse of our psalm so important, dear friends. And here's the psalmist claiming this one as his own personal possession.

Satisfaction in Christ Alone

The same with that dear old woman whom they have celebrated in poetry but want her more. Oh, beloved, this is the secret, isn't it, of our Christian faith in Christ. That we have one who truly satisfies, and that's all summed up in the latter part of that first verse of our psalm.

I shall not. It's true it's a negative statement. And sometimes people discount negative statements as though they were worthless, but they're not. We find two negative statements in this psalm, and they're both very precious.

I shall not want as one of them. I shall fear no evil as the other. But, friends, each one of these negative statements has a positive implication. When you read the description of that wonderful city in the book of Revelation, you read there's no night there.

There shall not enter into it anything to defile it, and so on. A lot of negative statements. Somebody says, why are these statements negative? Because they're given to us from the earthly standpoint.

God could hardly give them to us from the heavenly standpoint because we haven't got fully accrued with that as yet, you see. I shall not see, neither have entered into the heart the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

But God revealed them to us by his Spirit. So we only know them by Revelation. That's why the apostle Paul in describing it all says to be with Christ, which is far better. So don't be disturbed that because this negative statement appears in this verse, verse.

It's full of meaning. I shall not want. Which putting to other words is perfect satisfaction on dissatisfaction. In Florida, going from Miami North up to Orlando, when I got on the bus, I noticed a sign that said smoking on last three seats only.

Start counting, of course, which are the last seats and which are the first. Then how, there was a lady sitting right in front of me in the second row. She paid no attention whatever to this sign. I just simply decided that she must have gone to night school and couldn't read in the daytime.

It said no smoking except in the last three rows. She used only one match in the whole trip. She just kept lighting one with the stump of the other one, you know. And as we drew near to our destination, she threw an empty carton down in the well of the bus, and I noticed two big words, dissatisfy.

And I just felt like tapping her on the shoulder, which I couldn't do, of course, would have been rude. But I felt like tapping her on the shoulder and saying, Lady, how many does it take? It takes only one.

It takes only one. He satisfied. Are you longing for something here this morning? Having to do as we have in the ministry, we have to do with people who are victims of one thing or another. This young person has already become an alcoholic.

What's he doing this for? He knows that it's not only ruinous, but it's expensive. Here's another kid who's overtaken with drugs. He was promised some wonderful things by the fellow who sold him his first six, but now it's costing him more than he can possibly afford in one day.

Like we had a man over in Dallas who killed another man just to get his money. He said, well, it cost me $200 a day to keep up with my habit. Expensive, isn't it? And yet not satisfied? You look at their faces as they come into council with you, and written all across their forehead is the word dissatisfaction.

To divert their attention because they're not satisfied, and they wonder how you and I can be so satisfied. Is it because we're so indifferent? No. It's because we're found in the Lord Jesus Christ, one who truly satisfies.

And I think I can say this, dear friends, having known my Lord as my own personal Savior for over three score and ten years. I was saved as a teenager of 15. Thirty-odd years has proven to me.

How satisfying He really can be. I don't need these other things. I don't need alcohol. Why, I don't need drugs. Why, I don't need a conference for the last ten years especially. I don't need to call my beloved home to himself.

But, oh, how much satisfying He really is.

Satisfying to her. Satisfying to me. Our greatest satisfaction some evenings is just to sit together and enjoy the Lord's presence in our homes. Friends, there's something so wonderfully satisfying about being a Christian.

I invite you to this satisfaction this morning, I make no apology for the evangelistic thrust in this message this morning because the older I get, the more I feel impelled to speak to those who like myself at the very gates of eternity and to plead with you, my friend, if you've never made the decision before, whether young or old, maybe you're just a teenager and you've never made a decision.

A wonderful thing is when you trust the Lord Jesus Christ, He not only saves your soul, but He saves your life. And this is a great difference, isn't it? He saves your soul and He saves your life. May God lead you to the point where you can say with a psalmist, the Lord is my shepherd.

One. Let us turn to Him, number 112. Number 112. Thou alone, Lord Jesus, canst true peace impart. Thou dost know the sorrow of the human heart. He that art to win and in love for sinners suffers once for sin.

There is none, Lord Jesus. There is none like Thee for the brokenhearted. There is none like Thee. Let us rise to sing hymn number 112. Thou...