Dennis Tuuri

We’ve been talking the last few weeks about Psalm 20, 21, 22, and now Psalm 23. And by now, you probably heard enough times to remember that Psalms 20-24 form a unit as it were. We’ll get more of that in a little bit, but I want to just remind us what we were talking about last week. Two weeks ago, we talked about the atonement. The first half of Psalm 22, and then the balance of Psalm 22 talks about the manifestation, what actually God brought to pass with that atonement of Jesus Christ and the Messiah and of his resurrection.

And that of course talked about the millennial reign of Jesus Christ beginning with his resurrection from the dead and his power over the grave demonstrated in that and the establishment of his kingdom. And I don’t remember if I mentioned this last week or not, but I wanted to just show you a newsletter that I got from a friend up in Alaska. I know I showed this to several of you, but I have a friend in Alaska.

He pastors a small church up there in Talkeetna at the base of the mountain, I guess. Good guy, the kind of guy that if you don’t see him for five years, the next time you see him, you know, you’re going to sit down and talk about the scriptures and he’s very excited about them and wants to become more and more obedient to them. Him and I shared some of the same sort of trials coming out of dispensationalism and rejecting that and I hadn’t seen him for several years or heard from him and I got a newsletter from his church and I wanted to see how all this Reconstructionist stuff was kind of taking on him if you know what I mean.

Well, the name of the newsletter from his church is called the Seventh Trumpet and the banner of the newsletter is from Revelation 11:15. The seventh angel sounded his trumpet and there were loud voices in heaven which said, “The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ and he will reign forever and ever.” And that in a nutshell told me where he was at eschatologically.

Now the newsletter goes on to quote for instance from James B. Jordan’s article on our Christian school is the best answer. And the answer to that is or the best way to educate our children. And Jordan brings up the possibility that homeschools maybe actually be a better facility whereby to teach our children as opposed to the Christian school. So it was a good newsletter and good to hear from him.

I was thinking too this week as I look back on what I talked about last week in Psalm 22 tried to with the verses out of Isaiah where God talks about the hidden arrow in his shaft, the arrow of his power and of course that has reference to Jesus Christ. And I tried to make the point there one of the differences between a postmillennial perspective with this emphasis upon what Jesus Christ accomplished at his first coming and a premillennial perspective which says that Christ is to usher in the kingdom with his return and judgment and with warfare at the end of the age of the church.

One of the differences is that we tried to point out was the scriptures talk about the millennial reign of Christ as being a direct result of his atoning work on the cross. That’s the hidden power as it were of God that he pointed to in the Old Testament and that’s what he’s brought to pass 2,000 years ago. And I was talking to my daughter Lana about various books and she was talking about the Lord of the Rings books.

She likes those books and she said she wishes they were Christian. And I told her, “Well, when you’re a little older, maybe you’ll see there are some Christian things in those books.” And I was thinking about that specific book and how the pivotal act in that three book trilogy is the destruction of this ring of power which was going to be used by the evil one to control everybody. An individual man faithful to a calling to be the ring bearer takes the ring to a place where the ring is destroyed. A small act hidden in all the warfare that was going on. And yet, it was the pivotal act that turned the battle. And the same thing’s true of Psalm 22. It teaches that Jesus Christ came and through the cross, which is the preaching of foolishness to the wisdom of this world, accomplished once for all the victory of God.

And what we have left after that, the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross and his atonement and his expiation of God’s wrath and in his reconciliation of God’s people to himself and then his resurrection. What we have after that is as Gary North says a mopping up operation and again in the Lord of the Rings there was still battles to be fought after the destruction of the ring but the victory had been won once for all.

As we’re talking about books and movies. I also Friday night taped the film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and there again there was a pivotal act of that movie was the slaying of Liberty Valance, a lawless man rejected law. One of the first things you find out in the movie is when the stagecoach stops, Liberty’s going to rob the stagecoach and he has people get out and the lawyer’s name is Ransom Stoddard. Good name, Ransom. Anyway, when Liberty finds out he’s an attorney at law, he just gets incensed, beats him, says I hate law. He takes this law book and rips the pages out of it and starts beating Liberty. Real rejection of law and that characterizes, of course, the ungodly and Liberty Valance had to be shot.

Before that town was changed from being a wild western town with no law and order to being a town of prosperity. At the end of that movie there’s a scene where Ransom Stoddard, the attorney at law who had been saved by Tom Donovan played by John Wayne, has become a senator. Tom Donovan has died a pauper’s death really unknown by anybody. Ransom Stoddard in the meantime has gone on to become governor and perhaps vice president of the nation in the future.

And really John Wayne had kind of laid down his life as it were for the sake of the ransomed one. Jimmy Stewart at the end as they’re leaving the town of Shinbone on the train. Shinbone close to the heel, dry bone I suppose also in Ezekiel, life coming to the dry bones. But anyway after leaving Shinbone this Ransom Stoddard’s wife points out that the town now has changed from a wilderness into a garden.

And of course, that is a central teaching of God’s scriptures. And that’s what we’re going to talk about a little bit today is that what Christ has accomplished is as it were a return to an Adenic blessing for his people. And that movie certainly pointed out a lot of things that correlate with that. So it brings us to Psalm 23. Let’s go ahead and read Psalm 23 now.

The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Let’s pray. Almighty God, we thank you for this scripture before us. We thank you for the comfort it is to our souls. Help us to rest in what it teaches us this day. Help us to have open ears to hear the words of comfort, consolation, and victory that you have in this psalm for us. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

This is a rather amazing psalm. I think we take it for granted a lot, but to me it’s a rather amazing psalm.

One of the problems with our world today is humanism. And I suppose one way to think about what humanism in today’s sense of that term—and it needs to be different definition but today’s sense of that term—is to remember what the Westminster Shorter Catechism says is the purpose of man. The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. Well, the humanist sees the chief end of man and of all of creation is to glorify man and to enjoy him forever. He sees God, if he sees God at all, as serving mankind. We see man as serving God. And so, it’s proper to emphasize that difference that we have with those who would seek to glorify man and that we try to do that in this church.

Before I was brought to a realization of salvation in Jesus Christ, I used to listen to a band named Jethro Tull and the man who wrote music for Jethro Tull was a guy named Ian Anderson. And he had an album that I used to like a lot called Aqualung. And in the back of that album, he had a reversal of Genesis 1, which is probably seen this sort of thing that in the beginning man made God. And in a way that’s, you know, that’s obviously blasphemous to see that man is the one who created this concept of God.

But on the other hand, for the unregenerate, man does make his own god. And suffers under the wrath of that god. He rejects the god of scriptures and he seeks another god to serve him. And so in a way he sort of hit the nail on the head. But this scripture tells us as much as we want to reject that sort of thinking, this scripture is remarkable in that the basic thrust of this scripture before us Psalm 23 is to reassure us as people that God does have our concerns in mind that he cares for us.

Cares for us individually, personally, and in every area of our life. Now, a lot of verses in scripture teach that and we’ve talked about that and we’ve talked about for instance again in Psalm 20, 21 and 22 the ramifications of what Jesus Christ has done. But it was secondary—it was teaching first about a doctrine of God and then we understood something about man as a result of that. In this psalm it seems like God goes out of his way as it were to address it specifically in terms of comforting us, comforting man.

And I find that really very unusual in the scriptures and yet it’s also of course very comforting to know that God has given his only begotten son of course for the sake of the church. So it’s important to keep that balance. We reject humanism and yet we don’t want to throw out the idea that God has done what he’s done in history and through Jesus Christ. One of the primary purposes of that is for the sake of his elect and his people.

Now it’s also true of course that the humanist will use this psalm a lot. “Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.” Many funerals of humanists or their deathbeds they will have the psalm quoted to them. But we’ll see various evidences in this psalm where it isn’t really written for them as it is written for the people of God.

In terms of an outline, Psalm 23 begins with verse 1, a verse that is a summation introduction to the rest of the psalm. And I see in verses 2, 3, 4, and 5 an enumeration of the blessings that are spoken of in verse 1 and then in verse 6 there’s a summation verse. Verse 1 talks about the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want. Verses 2, 3, 4, and 5 goes on to talk about how I shall not want: of rest in verse 2, I shall not want for restoration and guidance in verse 3, I shall not want for safety in verse 4 and I shall have no need or want of sustenance in verse 5, and then in verse 6 there’s a summation and an application of those things throughout eternity.

Now, I mentioned last week at communion how this rest as it were of Psalm 23 that follows Psalm 22—that battle, Messiah and all that—was also talked about in other scriptures. And I mentioned last week a passage I said I’m mistaken in Isaiah it’s in Psalms where Jesus Christ is seen as the king going forth conquering and yet he has rest as well. And that’s in Psalm 110. It reads, “Thus the Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies my footstool.” We know this side of the cross exactly what that’s talking about.

The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion. Rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning. Thou hast the dew of thy youth. The Lord hath sworn and will not repent. Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Again, plainly referring to Jesus Christ, the coming Messiah. The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath.

He shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill the places with the dead bodies. He shall wound the heads of many countries. He shall drink of the brook in the way. Therefore shall he lift up the head. So we have this picture of Jesus Christ, the priest after the Melchizedekian priesthood conquering going forth in the nations conquering kings and yet in verse 7 he’ll drink of the brook in the way therefore shall he lift up his head confident assured of his final victory and now going through this mopping up operation as it were having achieved once for all the victory on the cross and he rests in his confident assurance of that and that’s what we’re told to do in Psalm 23 to rest in the finished work of Psalm 22.

In Psalm 22 spelled out in detail what Psalm 20 and 21 were all about. After this in Psalm 24 there’ll be a psalm—next week we’ll talk about the enthronement of God—following this and this pattern of salvation passages of salvation, the shepherding of God of his people after the victories won and then the enthronement of God amongst his people is borne out in many other passages of scripture and I’ll just mention a few here but we won’t go in any detail on these. I’d be here a lot longer than I should be if we did, but just for your own references in Isaiah 40:1-22, you see this same pattern.

You could write down these references if you like. Isaiah 40:1-10 talk about the finished salvation and work that God will affect for his people. Verse 11 of Isaiah 40 talks about God shepherding his people. And maybe it’d be good just to read that specific verse today. Isaiah 40:11, “Who hath directed the spirit of the Lord or being his counselor hath taught him?” So we have there that’s verse 13, I’m sorry, verse 11.

“He shall feed his flock like a shepherd. He shall gather the lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom and shall gently lead those that are with young.” And so we have there the image of God as a shepherd. And it’s surrounded before those verses 1-10 with salvation. And it’s followed in verses 12-21 with a prelude to the enthronement verse which is verse 22 which speaks of the enthronement of God among his people.

“It is he that siteth upon the circle of the earth and the inhabitants thereof are as grass.” So God is seen as a king sitting over earth. Same thing is true in Psalm 79. Psalm 79:1-13 speak of the salvation. Psalm 79 and 80 I should say. Verses 1-13 speak of the salvation. That’s Psalm 79. And then Psalm 80 goes right into this verse. “Give ear, O shepherd of Israel. Thou that leadest Joseph like a flock.” So we see the salvation of Psalm 79 being followed by the first verse of Psalm 80 which is a shepherding verse.

Second half of that verse. “Thou that dwellest between the cherubims shine forth.” God sitting upon his throne enthroned. Same thing’s also true of Psalm 92. Psalm 92 and 93 is the same sort of pattern we see. Verses 1-9 speak of salvation. Verses 10-15 are very similar to Psalm 23. Ah, there it is. One page off. Psalm 92. I’ll read the verses that refer to Psalm 23 again. Verses 10 through 15:

“But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of a unicorn. I shall be anointed with fresh oil. Mine eye also shall see my desire on mine enemies, and mine ear shall hear my desire of the wicked that rise up against me. The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree. He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God.”

And there we have many verses in Psalm 23 speak to this same truth of the righteous being planted like palm trees and a return to an Adenic blessing as it were. And that’s followed in Psalm—well the next two verses. “They shall still bring forth fruit in old age. They shall be fat and flourishing to show that the Lord is upright. He is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in him.” That’s followed by the first couple of verses of Psalm 93.

“The Lord reigneth. He is clothed with majesty. The Lord is clothed with strength wherewith he hath girded himself. The world also is established that it cannot be moved. Thy throne is established of old.”

And so we see that same pattern of the salvation of God’s people, the pastoral setting of Psalm 23 or the return to the Adenic blessing of God and salvation followed by the enthronement of God and realization of his enthronement. We’ll see that same pattern next week as we speak about Psalm 24 and the enthronement of that verse.

So, we titled our talk in Psalm 23, “Kingdom Life,” because it’s a direct result of the establishment of the kingdom of Jesus Christ in Psalm 22. In that sense, Psalm 23 presupposes for the rest that we have in Psalm 23 spoken of. It presupposes an understanding and acceptance of the finished victory of Jesus Christ on the cross once for all. Okay? It’s not future oriented. It presupposes that finished work.

And that’s the rest that we enter into.

Verse 1 then: “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.” We always look for the name used of God in the verses here and here it is: the Lord. The Lord is the word Yahweh or the covenant God of Israel. That’s a specific term used. And so this is a covenant truth. First of all, we see our first indication that Psalm 23 isn’t for majority of people perhaps that use it to comfort themselves and they’ve been reprobates and really have no Lord in that sense of a covenant relationship with God. So there’s should be a comfort to us though to know that the Lord is my shepherd. The Lord our covenant God is our shepherd.

The second word is important. “The Lord is my shepherd.” It’s not he shall be my shepherd. It’s not he may help me in certain times. The fact is that God is the shepherd of his people now present tense and will continue so into the future. He is my shepherd.

The Lord is my shepherd. It’s a personal psalm. Again, we’ve spoken of the truths of covenant theology that teach that God works with groups. The primary unit of the covenant is the family. And yet we also see and we don’t want to ignore this in scripture that God speaks to individuals and there’s an individual relationship that a person has with this covenant God. And so it’s a question of balance again.

But it’s very important to recognize that this psalm is intensely personal in its primary application. He is my shepherd.

And then “shepherd.” The word shepherd of course is not a new one to David. We know that it certainly was true of David. In Psalm 78 for instance, we read in verses 70-72 that God chose David also his servant and took him from the sheepfolds from following the sheep with young brought him to feed Jacob his people and Israel his inheritance.

“So he fed them according to the integrity of his heart and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands.” And those verses teach us that David of course was a shepherd following after the sheep with young as it were and he understood the care that sheep needed from the hand of the shepherd and God chose him with the integrity of his heart to be the shepherd of God’s people to feed them as it were and to guide them also by the skillfulness of his hands and so God works through other undersheperds as well. David spoke as a shepherd of his people but the shepherd understands that he is a shepherd under God who is the greater chief shepherd.

We see that in that same psalm 78 in verses 50-52. We see that these words are used of God specifically. He—God—made a way to his anger. He spared not their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence and smote all the firstborn of Egypt, the chief of their strength in the tabernacle of Ham, but made his own people to go forth like sheep and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.

So we know that David was a shepherd, but primarily the shepherd is God himself. God is seen as delivering his people and again having that image of a shepherd. After having accomplished typologically in Egypt—Psalm 22 in the atonement—he accomplishes that and he leads forth his people like a shepherd in the wilderness. God’s people were like that flock of God that God was bringing into his promised land and into his rest so God is the first and foremost shepherd we’re to think about even though there are various undersheperds.

In John 10:1 of course Jesus said that he was the true shepherd that the true shepherd lays down his life for the sheep and a hireling won’t do that. There’s another verse I was reading about as I was studying through this idea of shepherd. And I don’t I’m not sure the reference. It’s one of the minor prophets, but it talks about how a shepherd will grab a couple of legs out of the lion’s mouth or maybe an ear. It says, “So will God save his people.” Well, I mean, that shepherd is a brave man laying down his life for the sheep. I mean, he’s grabbing pieces of the sheep out of the lion’s mouth. Here is what the minor prophet uses the image of.

And so Jesus said, “I am the true shepherd who will lay down his life for the sheep” and of course he did.

In 1 Peter 5:4 Jesus is referred to as the chief shepherd and again you have there the idea that God is the chief shepherd, Jesus Christ is and yet he works through undersheperds as well and certainly there’s references in the scriptures that talk about the elders of the church for instance as being shepherds and trying to guide the people and direct them and feed them and give them rest in that way.

It should be important to realize there though that there are also many verses that talk about the heads of households performing that same function in their own family. This church doesn’t have one shepherd—God—and then one elder right now or one shepherd elder as it were. We have a whole bunch of elders as it were over each household and each man in his own household is a shepherd to his family and should have that kind of heart and concern for his family of course and should understand how he’s to perform that shepherding rule through the scriptures.

And so when you think about some of the things we’re going to talk about today, you can apply them in your own life because at least the heads of households here can apply them in terms of shepherding their own family and the wives can apply them because what are they here for? They’re here as a helpmate to help in that shepherding function. So they’re also shepherds in that sense of the household.

It’s important to recognize that God is the primary shepherd of course, the chief shepherd and all these blessings come forth from him.

In Hebrews when we always have our blessing at the end of our communion time we talk about Jesus that great shepherd of the sheep. And it’s important that he is recognized as the chief shepherd. There is an excellent passage in Ezekiel 34 that is parallel to what we’re reading about in terms of God being the shepherd and all that entails. Ezekiel 34 actually the whole chapter talks about God performing the shepherding aspect and it also talks in the first few verses, in verses 1-10.

Ezekiel 34:1-10 talks about the bad shepherds. He says, “You’ve had bad shepherds over you. Haven’t taken care of you. They’ve fed themselves.” And he’s talking about bad rulers. There are bad elders and bad judges in the nation of Israel and bad priests who don’t do what God has given them to do over his people.

Verses 11-16, however, talks then about God’s response to that. “For thus saith the Lord God, behold, I even I will both search my sheep and seek them out as a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered. So he’s replacing the false sheep, the hireling as it were, the unfaithful shepherds that have been over his people with him himself, the true shepherd.

“So will I seek out my sheep and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.” Darkness. We’ll come to that later in the song as well. “And I will bring them out from the people and gather them from the countries and will bring them to their own land and feed them upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers and in all the inhabited places of the country.”

And of course, we know Psalm 23 well enough where we know that he’s talking about feed and river. Here of life. And of course, that’s talked about in Psalm 23. “I will feed them in a good pasture. In verse 14, and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be there shall they lie in a good fold, and in a fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains of Israel. Obviously, a parallel passage. I will feed my flock, and I will cause them to lie down, saith the Lord God.

“I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken and will strengthen that which was sick, but I will destroy the fat and the strong. I will feed them with judgment.”

Now, all those references in verse 16 to binding up the weak, healing the sick, this sort of thing are all references to Jesus Christ specifically prophesying about the coming of Jesus Christ, the true and chief shepherd.

That portion of Ezekiel 34 is followed by verses 17-22 which speak about the flock itself being impure. God says he’s going to divide between the flock now. He even among the sheep. So it’s not just a matter of having bad rulers over the people. The people themselves have to be divided in two as it were. And he has to cull out the good sheep, the sheep of his pasture from the others. And then he’ll add to them.

And that of course speaks to the coming in of the gentile believers. And then in verses 23-31 speak about the continuing Adenic blessings that will come to that shepherd, the flock rather of the true shepherd.

“And I will set up one shepherd over them. And He shall feed them, even my servant David. He shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David, a prince among them. I, the Lord, have spoken it. And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land, and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods.”

Remember, the wild beasts were a cursing of Deuteronomy 28—or not Deuteronomy 28—Deuteronomy 8, I believe it is. The wild beasts in scripture are spoken of as a curse from God against his people. And here saying that even the wild beasts will cease to be in your land.

“Verse 26. And I will make them and the places round about my hill a blessing.” Cursing to blessing. “And I will cause the shower to come down in his season. There shall be showers of blessing. And the tree of the field shall yield her fruit, and the earth shall yield her increase, and they shall be safe in their land, and shall know that I am the Lord, when I have broken the bands of their yoke, and delivered them out of the hand of those that serve themselves of them.

“And they shall no more be a prey for the heathen, neither shall the beast of the land devour them, but they shall dwell safely, and none shall make them afraid. And I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land, neither bear the shame of the heathen anymore. Thus shall they know that I, the Lord their God, am with them, and that they, even the house of Israel, are my people, saith the Lord God.

“And ye, my flock, the flock of my pasture, are men, and I am your God, saith the Lord God.”

So we see there clearly a teaching that even in the time of David being typological of the coming Messiah, even then we have a return to Adenic blessing for the land. How much more when the true Messiah came, the great shepherd, the chief shepherd of all comes and establishes once for all his reign amongst his people.

This is the sort of blessing that is supposed to be characteristic of kingdom life. And that’s what Psalm 23 is all about. That sort of blessing.

Specifically, what these verses lead into is a description of then of what that blessing consists of. The Lord is my shepherd. He has accomplished all these things. He’s brought us into a good pasture. “I shall not want.”

Psalm 34:9 and 10-14 speaks of this very thing. “Oh, fear the Lord, ye his saints, for there is no want to them that fear him. The young lions do lack and suffer hunger, but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing. Come ye children, hearken unto me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord. What man is he that desireth life and loveth many days that ye may seek good. Keep thy tongue from evil and thy lips from speaking guile.”

So we see here that the ones who are descriptive of this same phrase, “I shall not want,” are those that fear God. And again, we have an indication that Psalm 23 is not a psalm of consolation or comfort to those who are outside of the fold of God. Psalm 34 teaches that to be free of want from anything is to be in a position of fearing God. And he then goes on to say, I’ll teach you how to fear God. And one of the first references he makes is to the use of our tongue. Speak truth. Keep thy tongue from evil and thy lips from speaking guile.

Depart from evil. It’s important then to recognize that if we’re to understand this blessing, then we have to be those who fear God and are part of the covenant community and demonstrate our inclusion in that through what we do with our lips. Very important. The tongue again.

In Deuteronomy 2 and 8 in verse 9 of each of those sections we see God describing the people of Israel in the wilderness. We already see that God was spoken of as guiding his people like a shepherd in the wilderness. And in verse—Psalm 29 it tells us the people in the wilderness had no want of anything that God had provided for them. Provided for them all that they needed to have even there in the wilderness.

Then as they’re being brought into their promised land they could say “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” That should have been their response. When they got into Canaan in Deuteronomy 8:9, we see the same thing true that God said, “I’ll bring you into a land where there’ll be all these great blessings. You’ll have want of nothing.” And again, so on the way to that promised land and finally in that promised land with God enthroned among his people, there shall be no want.

In both positions, though, no want. Jesus Christ has accomplished that deliverance. He’s brought us out as it were and promises us that we shall have no want or no need of anything. Like again though, there’s an enumeration of verse 1 throughout the rest of the psalm.

First of all, in verse 2, we’re spoken of having no want or no need of rest. “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters.”

Green isn’t really the word there. Green really is normally translated as grassy. So it’s like a grassy pasture, tall grass, nice and cool and pleasing to the eye, pleasing to the touch and God causes us to lie down in that sort of rest before him in green pastures.

Additionally, “he leadeth me beside the still waters.” Still waters does not have the implication of a bunch of water dammed up so that it’s still and completely quiet. It’s not the idea. The idea really better expressed as waters of rest. Stagnant water, of course, is an abomination to God. Water is supposed to be seen as flowing. And so, we don’t have here stagnant waters. We have waters of rest fast. It creates stillness in us. That’s the kind of waters it’s speaking of.

Babbling brooks, I suppose, would meet this description very well. So, he causes us to dwell or to live in these green pastures, cooling to the eye, cool to lay down and rest in. And so, he causes us, this verse teaches us about God’s providing all our wants in terms of rest.

And of course, the verses we’ve read this morning in Nehemiah speak of that rest in the Sabbath. God has called us to stop, a cessation from work on the Sabbath day. He calls us to rest in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the Sabbath. There’s a stress there upon a cessation from work. There’s also a stress, however, in a rest in the finished work of God in his providence. We don’t rest just because God says, “Rest this day.” We rest because God has accomplished once for all what he’s needed to accomplish in Jesus Christ. We rest in the providence of God, the means whereby God works out his decree in our lives.

So we cease also from planning for instance in the future. We cease from those sort of activities on the Sabbath. We cease from concerns and anxieties on the Sabbath. We don’t worry about what we could be doing on Sunday if we just had a day where we could be like any other day. We recognize that God has called us apart to rest.

I work in a place—the Oregon Graduate Center. There’s a lot of activity and there are people at the Oregon Graduate Center who work sometimes three, four, five weeks about a day off. It’s incredible, but it’s true. And what the scriptures teach us is that sort of activity is actually counterproductive. “There’s a way that seems right to a man with the ends thereof, the ways of death.” God tells us to rest one day in seven. We have to believe God that he’s our shepherd. He’ll guide us into rest, into that rest, and we should lie down knowing that he is taking care of us if we walk in obedience to his commandments.

So we are to be resting in the providence of God. But there’s more to it than that. We’re not just supposed to be lying down in green pastures on Sunday. Our rest is perpetual. We’ve been ushered into the Sabbath rest of Jesus Christ. A perpetual Sabbath rest as it were. And so we have one day in seven where we cease from all things to do that to rest in Jesus Christ. But that sort of rest and lack of concern and anxiety should follow us throughout the week as well.

And of course there’s many scriptures that speak about that. Philippians 4:6, we’re supposed to cast all our cares upon him that cares for us. And we talked a couple of weeks ago, that word for cast means to roll your burdens onto him. That should be our attitude throughout the week as well. We don’t work with the same frenetic pace or frenetic concern that it is the only way by which things get better for our lives that those without an understanding of the shepherd have.

We work as those who understand. The shepherd has given us work to do, but that work is restful work. And we’re to rest in him.

We’re led into this rest. By the way, it says “he leadeth me beside the still waters.” The implication is he does it and then he continues to do it throughout our life. And we’re led into an understanding of that rest in God throughout our lives. I think that’s true of the Sabbath.

Many of you have asked me what should we do on Sunday, you know, and that’s a good question. I ask it myself a lot. But I know this much that the more I try to honor the Sabbath day and turn from doing my ways on it and doing God’s ways and to meditate upon him, the more he leads me to an understanding of that rest that’s to occur typologically for the rest of the week on Sunday. He leads us into an understanding of the Christian Sabbath.

We live in a world that has rejected any notion of the providence of God. We have the providence of man being taught from you know every school in the land. And yet it’s the providence of God we’re to rest in on Sunday. And as we do that, he’ll continue to guide us as it were beside those still waters, beside the waters that give rest.

Psalm 36:7-10 we read the following. “How excellent is thy loving kindness, oh God. Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings. They shall be abundantly satisfied of the fatness of thy house. Thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasure. For with thee is the fountains of life, and thy light shall we see light. Oh, continue thy loving kindness unto them that know thee, and thy righteousness to the upright in heart.”

I thought of this again. I’m probably sharing this with some of you, but when we came back from Salem one Friday afternoon, I came back with a couple from Portland, and it was the Friday of the state board meeting several weeks ago, and it had been a real trying afternoon. Kind of gone up and down, and I got real upset, wanted to go in there and just, you know, blast away or something. And it turned out good, though. And God in his providence gave us a measure of victory that day.

But as we were coming away from there and we were driving away from Salem, I looked up and it was a beautiful clear day, but there’s this little cloud in front of the car directly as we were driving north back up to Portland. And the cloud looked like wings, angel’s wings. And I thought of these verses that talk about the people of God resting under the wings of God. And remember how we talked about how in Deuteronomy 32, the song of witness that God is seen to be hovering over his people. And the word used there is the word used in Genesis 1 where the spirit of God hovered over the waters, bringing forth new life, bringing forth a new creation as it were of his people in Jesus Christ saved in the second Adam.

That’s the position we have before God. And the wings serve as a covering for us as well of safety. And I saw that cloud and I just relaxed. I rested in Jesus Christ as it were. Not because some cloud in the sky because it reminded me of that verse in scripture about the wings—the shadow of the wings of God—that we’re to rest under. “How excellent is thy loving kindness, oh God. Therefore, the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings.”

We’re to have that understanding of God’s protection of us. It’s not true, however, of the pagan. Again, in that same Psalm 36:4, it is what the unbeliever. “He deviseth mischief upon his bed. He setteth himself in a way that is not good. He abhorreth not evil.” Even while he’s upon his bed, he’s thinking about mischief. The bed is a place of rest.

We have rest in Jesus Christ. We should be able to sleep well at nights. But the wicked is not. So when he should be sleeping and resting, he has no rest. Of course, he’s rejected the rest of God. And so he’s turning and devising wickedness upon his bed.

In Isaiah 57, that same thing is spoken of verses 20 and 21. “The wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace saith my God to the wicked.”

So the peace of God that’s spoken of the rest he gives us in verse 2 are for his covenant people and the wicked reject that rest.

Well that same section of scripture Isaiah 57:15 and 18 it says that “thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabit with eternity whose name is holy. I dwell in the high and holy places. With him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

“Verse 18, I have seen his ways and will heal him. I will lead him also and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners.”

We have more than just a rest in God and God supplying all the rest that we need. God also supplies the restoration for our soul that is spoken of. In these verses, God has said to restore the contrite and humble one and to restore the comforts unto him and to his mourners.

God restores the upright, which is in verse 3. It talks about that “he restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”

God leaves us with no want of restoration for our souls. There are two things being spoken of here. One is the obvious one of being restored into a right relationship with our covenant God. He’s done that. But these verses have a future aspect to them as well. It already occurs. It will continue to occur in the future. God will continue to restore us to lift us up, lift our spirits up when we get down. When we stray off the path of righteousness, he’ll bring us back and restore our soul. He’s our covenant God.

The “paths of righteousness” there, the word for path means ruts or a track or a wagon wheel track is the idea spoken of there. So, it’s not always bad to be in a rut. Okay? There are ruts of righteousness of doing what’s right in God’s sight that are good to be in. We stray out of them. He leads us back to them. He restores our soul.

One of the verses that should come to mind from this also is Psalm 19. And we spoke about this when we went through the Psalms. The description of the law of God. One of the characteristics of the law of God is that it restores the soul. “The law of the Lord is perfect. Restoring the soul.” The method whereby God provides the restoration for our soul is his word, his application of his word to everything that we do to our path to our rotten life as it were. That’s the way that God chooses to restore our soul.

A picture of that is found in the book of Ruth where you have Naomi goes out, loses her two sons, goes back with one of her sons, his wife, Ruth, goes back to the land. She says, “God has sent me back empty-handed. I went out full. I came back empty.” And she’s seen as being contrite and humbled and downcast. But God at the end of that book of Ruth restores Naomi. That’s the word that’s used there to restore her. And how does he do that? Well, he uses his law. Of course, his law is referring to gleaning to the kinsmen. Boaz ends up marrying Ruth. They have a son. They name the son Obed.

Obed is to be the grandfather of David, by the way. But as soon as they have the son, Ruth brings the son to Naomi and said, “God has restored you. He’s brought you back to a place of blessing and fruitfulness again in your grandson now. And so it’s a delightful picture of the application of God’s law and the resultant blessings of that being a restoring of the soul.

On the other side of that we have Lamentations speak of the lack of restoration that comes to those who act in disobedience. Lamentations 1:11: “All her people sigh. They seek bread. They have given their pleasant things for meat to relieve the soul. See Lord and consider for I am become vile.” And in verse 16: “For these things I weep, mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me. My children are desolate because the enemy prevaileth.”

The people of God had acted unrighteously. They acted disobediently to the law and therefore there was no restoration to them. The comforter was far from them and God gave them no comfort in that situation. He restores our soul as we walk in obedience to his scriptures. He calls us to a path of righteousness, application of his law to our lives and promises a restoration of our soul. And he promises to lead us back into that path of righteousness.

We’re his covenant people. If we stray off, he’ll lead us back.

Verse 4 also speaks that we shall have no want of safety. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.”

And so we have here obviously a description of at least a form of death. The “shadow of death” there is really a compound word like death shade or real darkness, dark—that kind of thing. You’re down in a valley it’s even darker down there of course. And so we have a place that would be naturally to the unbeliever, to him who doesn’t understand his relationship to the covenant God, a place of great fear. But God promises that we shall have no want of safety in all the things that we go through in life that he leads us into. He’ll be our shepherd. His rod and his staff will comfort us.

The presence of him with his people will be a comfort to his people. And so we’ll have no want of safety. We should trust in that and believe in that.

In Psalm 107:1-15, we have that same thing spoken of. And what’s the result of that? “Oh, give thanks unto the Lord for he is good and his mercy endureth forever. There’s a description of that mercy.” Then verse 8, “oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men. For he satisfied the longing soul and fill up the hungry with goodness.”

Verse 14, “he brought them out of darkness in the shadow of death and break their bands in sunder. Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men. For he hath broken the gates of brass and cut the bars of iron in sunder.”