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Why Is Psalm 23 the Chapter People Turn To When Everything Else Fails_ · Bible stories

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  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Bible Stories. You may notice there
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  Speaker 1: QR code to donate directly. Thank you for helping us
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  Speaker 1: keep these Bible Stories going. Psalm 23 is the chapter
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  Speaker 1: people reach for when everything else has failed, and the
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  Speaker 1: reason is not the one most people would give. Most
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  Speaker 1: would say it comforts them, and it does. But a
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  Speaker 1: great deal of the Bible is comforting. Nobody whispers the
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  Speaker 1: lists of names in numbers in a hospital corridor at
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  Speaker 1: two in the morning. Read Psalm 23 slowly and count
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  Speaker 1: the requests. There are none. In six verses, David never
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  Speaker 1: once asks God for a single thing, and that is
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  Speaker 1: why the psalm holds at the hour when nothing else does.
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  Speaker 1: Someone at the end of their strength cannot put a
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  Speaker 1: request together. They do not know what would even help.
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  Speaker 1: They may not be sure anyone is listening. Psalm 23
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  Speaker 1: asks them to know none of that. It hands them
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  Speaker 1: six sentences that were already true before they woke up
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  Speaker 1: this morning— And once you notice what David left out
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  Speaker 1: of this psalm, you start seeing everything else he left out.
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  Speaker 1: No enemy is named, no year, no place, no reason
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  Speaker 1: given for the trouble. Almost every detail is missing, and
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  Speaker 1: the missing details are the reason it fits you. Open
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  Speaker 1: almost any other psalm of trouble, and you will hear
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  Speaker 1: a man asking for something. How long, O Lord, will
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  Speaker 1: you forget me forever? Psalm 13.1 That is a question
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  Speaker 1: thrown up at heaven. It wants an answer. It is
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  Speaker 1: asking God to move. Or take the psalm David wrote
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  Speaker 1: after Nathan, the prophet, confronted him. Create in me a
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  Speaker 1: clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
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  Speaker 1: Psalm 51.10 That is a request too. A good one,
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  Speaker 1: an honest one, but a request. David is asking God
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  Speaker 1: to do something that has not happened yet. Now put
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  Speaker 1: Psalm 23 beside them. The Lord is my shepherd, I
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  Speaker 1: shall not want. That is a description. He makes me
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  Speaker 1: lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the
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  Speaker 1: still waters. He restores my soul. Description again. Three things
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  Speaker 1: God does, reported the way you would report the weather.
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  Speaker 1: Go through the whole psalm, and the pattern never breaks.
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  Speaker 1: He leads me in the paths of righteousness for his
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  Speaker 1: name's sake. Statement. Even though I walk through the valley
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  Speaker 1: of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,
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  Speaker 1: for you are with me. Statement. You prepare a table
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  Speaker 1: before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint
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  Speaker 1: my head with oil. My cup runs over. Statement, statement, statement.
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  Speaker 1: Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days
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  Speaker 1: of my life, and I will dwell in the house
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  Speaker 1: of the Lord forever. Six verses. Zero requests. That is
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  Speaker 1: unusual enough in the Psalms to be worth stopping over.
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  Speaker 1: The Psalter is largely a book of asking. It is
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  Speaker 1: full of men shouting at God, arguing with God, begging God,
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  Speaker 1: reminding God of promises He made. And then, in the
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  Speaker 1: middle of all that noise, sits this short Psalm that
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  Speaker 1: asks for nothing at all because it has already decided
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  Speaker 1: that the matter is settled. Think about what that does
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  Speaker 1: for a person in trouble. When you are strong, asking
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  Speaker 1: is easy. You know what you want. You can name
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  Speaker 1: the outcome, describe the problem, make your case. When you
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  Speaker 1: are truly at the end of yourself, all of that goes.
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  Speaker 1: You sit down and open your mouth and nothing comes.
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  Speaker 1: You do not know whether you want the illness taken
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  Speaker 1: away or the strength to carry it. You do not
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  Speaker 1: know what would even help. Psalm 23 meets that person
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  Speaker 1: without asking them to figure any of it out. It
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  Speaker 1: does not say, tell God what you need. It says,
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  Speaker 1: here is who he is. You do not have to
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  Speaker 1: bring anything to it. You just have to say it.
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  Speaker 1: There is a second thing missing from Psalm 23, and
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  Speaker 1: it matters just as much. Many of David's Psalms come
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  Speaker 1: with a note at the top telling you exactly when
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  Speaker 1: they were written. Psalm 3 carries the line, a psalm
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  Speaker 1: of David when he fled from Absalom his son. Psalm
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  Speaker 1: 51 is tied to the day Nathan came to see him.
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  Speaker 1: Psalm 57 is marked as written in the cave. Those
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  Speaker 1: notes are a gift to a historian. You can place
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  Speaker 1: the psalm in a room on a date with a
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  Speaker 1: face across from it. Psalm 23 has no such note.
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  Speaker 1: the heading says only that it is a psalm of
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  Speaker 1: david no event no enemy named no year and inside
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  Speaker 1: the psalm the same silence holds there is a valley
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  Speaker 1: but david never tells us which one There are enemies,
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  Speaker 1: but he never gives us a name, a nation, or
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  Speaker 1: a reason for the quarrel. There is a threat of death,
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  Speaker 1: and he says nothing about what is causing it. He
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  Speaker 1: does not tell us whether he is young or old,
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  Speaker 1: king or fugitive, guilty or wronged. That could look like
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  Speaker 1: a weakness. It is the source of the psalm's strength.
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  Speaker 1: because a psalm with no story attached has room for yours.
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  Speaker 1: When a widow reads it at a graveside, nothing in
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  Speaker 1: the text says her grief is the wrong kind of valley.
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  Speaker 1: When a man in a chemotherapy chair reads it, the
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  Speaker 1: psalm does not tell him it was written for battlefields.
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  Speaker 1: When a woman lies awake at two in the morning
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  Speaker 1: with a mind she cannot slow down, this psalm does
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  Speaker 1: not ask her to explain herself first. Every other kind
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  Speaker 1: of comfort wants details. Friends want to know what happened.
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  Speaker 1: Doctors need a history. Even sermons usually pick a specific
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  Speaker 1: trouble and speak to it. Psalm 23 takes the details
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  Speaker 1: off the table. It names the shepherd and leaves the
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  Speaker 1: rest of the page blank so that you can stand
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  Speaker 1: in it. That is a strange kind of literary courage.
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  Speaker 1: David had plenty of stories he could have attached. He
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  Speaker 1: had been hunted through the wilderness by a king who
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  Speaker 1: wanted him dead. He had lost a child. He had
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  Speaker 1: watched a son turn an army against him. Any one
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  Speaker 1: of those would have made a moving heading. He left
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  Speaker 1: them all off, and in doing so he gave the
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  Speaker 1: psalm to everyone. Now go back to the first line,
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  Speaker 1: because everything else rests on it. The Lord is my shepherd,
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  Speaker 1: I shall not want. Psalm chapter 23 verse 1. Notice
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  Speaker 1: the tense. Not the Lord will be my shepherd when
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  Speaker 1: things improve. Not the Lord was my shepherd back when
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  Speaker 1: life made sense. Is present tense right now in whatever
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  Speaker 1: condition the reader happens to be in when they say it.
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  Speaker 1: And notice the word my. not the shepherd of Israel
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  Speaker 1: in general, though he is that, not the shepherd of
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  Speaker 1: the righteous, or the shepherd of those who have kept
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  Speaker 1: up their prayers, mine. David claims a personal share in
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  Speaker 1: the care of God without offering any evidence that he
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  Speaker 1: has earned it. To understand what he is claiming, you
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  Speaker 1: have to understand what a shepherd actually was in that world.
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  Speaker 1: A shepherd was a full-time custodian for animals that could
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  Speaker 1: not survive a single week alone. Sheep cannot defend themselves.
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  Speaker 1: They have no claws, no speed worth mentioning, and no
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  Speaker 1: instinct to scatter usefully when something with teeth arrives. They
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  Speaker 1: cannot find water on their own in dry country. They
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  Speaker 1: have no sense of direction to bring them home once
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  Speaker 1: they have drifted, which is why a lost sheep stays lost.
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  Speaker 1: Left to itself, a sheep does not adapt. It stands
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  Speaker 1: still and waits for something to happen to it. So
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  Speaker 1: when David says, the Lord is his shepherd, he is
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  Speaker 1: making an admission about himself. He is saying that the
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  Speaker 1: things he most needs are things he cannot do. He
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  Speaker 1: cannot protect himself. He cannot feed himself in a place
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  Speaker 1: where there is nothing. He cannot find the way back
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  Speaker 1: once he has wandered. He is describing a creature that
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  Speaker 1: is entirely dependent, and he is describing himself. Then comes
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  Speaker 1: the second half of the line. I shall not want...
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  Speaker 1: The old word want here means lack. I will not
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  Speaker 1: go without. Not that David will get everything he would like,
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  Speaker 1: and not that his life will be easy. He had
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  Speaker 1: already lived enough by then to know better. The claim
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  Speaker 1: is narrower and stronger than comfort. Whatever is truly needed
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  Speaker 1: to get him through, he will have. That is a
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  Speaker 1: claim about the shepherd, not about the sheep. The reason
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  Speaker 1: the sheep will not lack anything is that the one
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  Speaker 1: carrying the responsibility is competent. David is not saying he
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  Speaker 1: has a good attitude. He is saying he has a
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  Speaker 1: good shepherd. Here is a way to read Psalm 23
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  Speaker 1: that most people never try. Go through it and underline
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  Speaker 1: every verb, then sort them by who is performing them.
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  Speaker 1: Look at God's list. He makes. He leads. He restores.
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  Speaker 1: He leads again. He is with. He prepares. He anoints.
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  Speaker 1: Seven actions, one after another, and every one of them
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  Speaker 1: is something done on David's behalf. God feeds, God guides,
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  Speaker 1: God repairs, God accompanies, God hosts, God honors. Now look
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  Speaker 1: at David's list. He wants nothing. He walks. He fears
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  Speaker 1: no evil. He dwells. That is the whole of it.
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  Speaker 1: Three of those four are not actions at all, but conditions,
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  Speaker 1: states of being. The one real thing David does in
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  Speaker 1: the entire psalm is walk. He does not fight in
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  Speaker 1: this psalm. He does not climb, build, earn, prove, pray, repent,
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  Speaker 1: or strive. He walks, and even then he is walking
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  Speaker 1: on a path someone else chose, at a pace someone
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  Speaker 1: else set, through terrain someone else picked. That arrangement is
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  Speaker 1: exactly what makes the psalm bearable at the worst hour
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  Speaker 1: of a person's life. Most spiritual advice arrives with a
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  Speaker 1: task attached. Pray more. Have more faith. Read your Bible.
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  Speaker 1: Stop worrying. Trust harder. And all of that may be
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  Speaker 1: good advice on an ordinary Tuesday, but it is unusable
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  Speaker 1: to a person who has just been told there is
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  Speaker 1: nothing more that can be done. That person has no
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  Speaker 1: capacity left for a task. Psalm 23 assigns them one thing.
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  Speaker 1: Keep walking. That is all. Not walk well, not walk quickly,
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  Speaker 1: not walk without shaking. Just do not lie down and stop.
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  Speaker 1: Everything else on the list belongs to God. And even
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  Speaker 1: the walking is not really a demand. David describes it
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  Speaker 1: more than he commands it. He is reporting where he is,
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  Speaker 1: the way a man in a gorge would tell you
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  Speaker 1: he is in a gorge. The shepherd is the one
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  Speaker 1: moving the flock. The sheep is simply going where it
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  Speaker 1: is being taken. Then the ground drops away. Even though
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  Speaker 1: I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
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  Speaker 1: I will fear no evil, for you are with me.
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  Speaker 1: Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Psalm 23.4
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  Speaker 1: The word to hold on to is through. David does
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  Speaker 1: not say he lives in the valley. He does not
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  Speaker 1: say he has been given the valley as his permanent address.
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  Speaker 1: He walks through it, which means there is an entrance
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  Speaker 1: behind him and an exit somewhere ahead, even on the
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  Speaker 1: stretch where he cannot see either one. That single word
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  Speaker 1: is doing enormous work for anyone in a long season
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  Speaker 1: of trouble. When you are in the middle of a
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  Speaker 1: dark year, the thing that breaks you is rarely the
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  Speaker 1: pain itself. It is the growing suspicion that this is
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  Speaker 1: now simply what your life is, that there is no
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  Speaker 1: other side, that you have arrived at your final condition
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  Speaker 1: and the rest of your days will look like this.
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  Speaker 1: The word through quietly refuses that idea. The valley is terrain,
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  Speaker 1: not a destination. Now notice what David does not claim.
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  Speaker 1: He does not say the valley is short. He does
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  Speaker 1: not say it is deserved or undeserved. He does not
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  Speaker 1: say it makes sense, or that he has understood the
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  Speaker 1: reason for it, or that he has made peace with it.
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  Speaker 1: He does not say the shadow is only a shadow,
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  Speaker 1: and therefore harmless. He offers no explanation of suffering at all.
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  Speaker 1: That silence is one of the kindest things in Scripture.
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  Speaker 1: Explanations of suffering are almost always offered by people standing
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  Speaker 1: outside of it, and they land on the sufferer like
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  Speaker 1: a weight. Psalm 23 refuses to explain. It only tells
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  Speaker 1: you who is there. And when David says he will
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  Speaker 1: fear no evil, he is not saying that evil is absent.
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  Speaker 1: He has just named it. Something in that valley can
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  Speaker 1: kill him. The danger is real, and it stays real.
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  Speaker 1: What answers the fear is a presence. Then he mentions
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  Speaker 1: two objects, and they are the only pieces of equipment
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  Speaker 1: named in the entire psalm. The rod and the staff.
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  Speaker 1: One was a short, heavy club a shepherd carried against
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  Speaker 1: whatever came out of the rocks. The other was the
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  Speaker 1: long stick with the hooked end, used to steer a
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  Speaker 1: wandering animal back from a ledge before it understood it
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  Speaker 1: was in danger. Both are tools of the shepherd's hand,
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  Speaker 1: and both do their work close up. You cannot defend
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  Speaker 1: a flock with a club from a mile away. You
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  Speaker 1: cannot pull a sheep back from an edge with a
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  Speaker 1: hook unless you are standing near enough to reach it.
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  Speaker 1: The comfort in that verse comes from what the equipment
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  Speaker 1: proves about the distance. There is a small word in
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  Speaker 1: the middle of that verse worth pausing over because it
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  Speaker 1: is the only one of its kind in the whole psalm.
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  Speaker 1: I will fear no evil, for you are with me. 4. Because.
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  Speaker 1: It is the single place in six verses where David
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  Speaker 1: gives a reason for anything. Every other line in this
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  Speaker 1: psalm is asserted flatly, with no argument behind it. The
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  Speaker 1: Lord is my shepherd, and David does not tell you
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  Speaker 1: why he believes it. My cup runs over, and he
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  Speaker 1: offers no proof. Goodness and mercy will follow me all
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  Speaker 1: my days, and he does not defend the claim. He
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  Speaker 1: simply says these things the way a man states his
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  Speaker 1: own name. Then, in the darkest verse, he explains himself
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  Speaker 1: exactly once, and the reason he gives is a presence.
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  Speaker 1: You are with me. That is the load-bearing sentence of
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  Speaker 1: the psalm. Everything comfortable in the first three verses could
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  Speaker 1: be enjoyed at a distance. Green pastures and still water
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  Speaker 1: do not require the shepherd to be standing next to you.
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  Speaker 1: He could set the food out and go. But in
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  Speaker 1: a gorge with steep sides and very little light, provision
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  Speaker 1: is worthless without nearness. What a frightened creature needs there
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  Speaker 1: is company. And that is where David's language turns, and
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  Speaker 1: he stops speaking about God and starts speaking to him.
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  Speaker 1: He had been describing a shepherd. Now he is talking
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  Speaker 1: to one. The next verse does something almost no one notices,
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  Speaker 1: and it is the strongest evidence for everything I have
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  Speaker 1: said so far. You prepare a table before me in
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  Speaker 1: the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil.
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  Speaker 1: My cup runs over. Psalm 23, verse 5. The enemies
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  Speaker 1: are still there. Nobody has defeated them, converted them, scattered them,
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  Speaker 1: or sent them home. They stand at the end of
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  Speaker 1: the verse, exactly where they stood at the beginning. And
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  Speaker 1: here is the part that should stop you. David never
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  Speaker 1: asks God to remove them. That would have been the
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  Speaker 1: natural request. It is the request almost every one of
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  Speaker 1: us would make. Take this away. Take him away. Make
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  Speaker 1: the diagnosis untrue. Make the marriage hold. Make the phone
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  Speaker 1: call unhappen. David does not ask. He describes a meal
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  Speaker 1: being served in front of people who wish him harm,
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  Speaker 1: and he calls that enough. Setting a table for a
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  Speaker 1: guest was a formal and public act in that world.
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  Speaker 1: It put the host's own name over the person he
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  Speaker 1: was feeding— To sit and eat at a man's table
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  Speaker 1: meant you had come under his protection, and everyone watching
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  Speaker 1: a meal like that understood the arrangement. So what David
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  Speaker 1: is describing is a declaration made in front of the
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  Speaker 1: people who wish him harm. The oil poured on the
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  Speaker 1: head belonged to the same custom. It was how a
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  Speaker 1: host marked a guest as honoured, as somebody worth the expense.
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  Speaker 1: Then there is the cup— David describes its spilling, which
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  Speaker 1: tells you what kind of host is pouring. Nobody fills
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  Speaker 1: a cup past the rim by accident. Put the scene together.
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  Speaker 1: A man is surrounded by people who want him gone.
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  Speaker 1: He is not rescued from them. He is fed, marked
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  Speaker 1: as honoured, and given more than he can hold, in
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  Speaker 1: full view of everyone who wishes him gone. That is
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  Speaker 1: the only unresolved thing in Psalm 23, and David leaves
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  Speaker 1: it unresolved on purpose. The psalm has a valley with
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  Speaker 1: an exit, but the enemies simply stay. Which is honest,
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  Speaker 1: because that is how a great deal of life actually works.
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  Speaker 1: Some things do not get fixed. The hostile relative does
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  Speaker 1: not soften. The chronic pain does not lift. The reputation
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  Speaker 1: does not get repaired. You go on eating at the
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  Speaker 1: table anyway with an audience. The last verse widens out
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  Speaker 1: and takes in everything. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow
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  Speaker 1: me all the days of my life, and I will
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  Speaker 1: dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Psalm 23.6
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  Speaker 1: Two small phrases carry the weight there. The first is surely,
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  Speaker 1: which is the only word of certainty in the entire psalm.
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  Speaker 1: David has spent five verses describing danger, enemies, and the
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  Speaker 1: shadow of death without ever hedging, and now at the
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  Speaker 1: close he plants a word that admits no doubt. The
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  Speaker 1: second is, all the days of my life, not the
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  Speaker 1: good days, not the faithful days, or the days when
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  Speaker 1: prayer came easily, or the seasons when he was behaving well,
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  Speaker 1: all of them. The Word covers the days David was
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  Speaker 1: hiding in caves, the days he was in the wrong
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  Speaker 1: and knew it, the days he was too exhausted to
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  Speaker 1: think about God, and the ordinary forgettable days in between
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  Speaker 1: when nothing happened at all. Goodness and mercy are not
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  Speaker 1: described as things David goes out and collects. They come
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  Speaker 1: along behind him. They arrive at the pace of his
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  Speaker 1: own life, on days he is watching for them and
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  Speaker 1: on days he is not. And crucially, he says they
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  Speaker 1: will follow him, which means they are still there on
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  Speaker 1: the days he is walking in the wrong direction. That
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  Speaker 1: word mercy is one of the great words of the
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  Speaker 1: Old Testament. It carries the sense of a loyalty that
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  Speaker 1: has been promised and will not be withdrawn. It is
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  Speaker 1: not a mood God is in. It is a commitment
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  Speaker 1: He has made, and it does not depend on the
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  Speaker 1: performance of the person receiving it. Then the psalm ends
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  Speaker 1: where it has been heading the whole time— the house
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  Speaker 1: of the Lord. Not a field, not a valley, not
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  Speaker 1: a table set in hostile company, but a home with
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  Speaker 1: no end date on it. The sheep that could not
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: find its own way anywhere is going to arrive. Before
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: we go further, it is worth naming the things this
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: psalm leaves out, because the absences are as deliberate as
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: the words. David never says he is happy. He never
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: says he has stopped hurting. He never says the trouble
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: was worth it, or that he has learned his lesson,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: or that he can now see the good purpose behind
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: the valley. He never says his faith was strong. He
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: never says he prayed correctly, or that his obedience is
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: what secured the shepherd's care. Read that list again and
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: notice how much of ordinary religious talk it removes. So
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: much of what gets said to suffering Christians is built
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: out of those very sentences. God has a plan in this.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: There is a reason. You will understand later. Stay strong.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: Keep believing. Do not let your faith slip. Not one
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: of those appears in Psalm 23. David makes no claim
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: about his own inner state at all, apart from the
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: fear he refuses. He does not perform. He does not
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: testify to his own strength. He describes a shepherd, and
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: he lets that be the whole of it. For an
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: audience worn out by religion that feels like a performance,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: that is an enormous relief. This psalm has no room
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: in it for showing off. There is no place in
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: these six verses where you could pretend to be doing
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: better than you are, because the psalm never asks how
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: you are doing. The picture David reaches for did not
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: stop with him. It runs forward through the whole of Scripture,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: and it gets more personal every time it appears. Centuries
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: after David, Isaiah described God coming to a people who
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: had been through exile and ruin, and he used the
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: same image. He tends his flock like a shepherd. He
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: to his heart. He gently leads those that have young.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: Isaiah chapter 40 verse 11. Notice what has been added.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: In Psalm 23, the shepherd leads and guards. In Isaiah,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: he picks the animal up. He carries the ones that
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: cannot keep pace, and he slows down for the ones
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: with something fragile to look after. The care becomes physical.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Then it becomes a face. When Jesus looked out over
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: the crowds that followed him around Galilee, the writer of
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: Matthew's Gospel chose one specific comparison to describe what he felt.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Matthew 9.36 Harassed and helpless, worn down by pressure from
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: the outside and unable to fix it from the inside.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: That is the exact condition David wrote the psalm for,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: and it is the condition that moved Jesus more than
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: any other. And he told a story about it. A
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: man with a hundred sheep loses one. He leaves the
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: ninety-nine in open country and goes out after the one
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: that is lost, and he keeps going until he finds it.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: That is the parable in Luke's Gospel, and it settles
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: a question Psalm 23 raises but does not answer. The
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: psalm tells you the shepherd leads and provides. The parable
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: tells you what he does when the sheep is no
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: longer there to be led. He goes and gets it,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: which is exactly what a sheep needs, because a lost
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: sheep has no way home. Everything about the animal that
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: makes it helpless in the field also makes it helpless
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: once it has wandered. It cannot retrace its steps. It
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: cannot smell its way back. Someone has to come. And
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: notice the arithmetic in the story, because it makes no
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: business sense. Ninety-nine animals are safe. One is missing. Any
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: reasonable owner would count the loss and stay with the flock.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: The shepherd in the parable leaves the ninety-nine and goes,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: which tells you that he is not thinking about the
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: flock as a total. He is thinking about one animal
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: by name. So the shepherd of Psalm 23 turns out
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: to be a shepherd who walks out into open country
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: in the dark after one animal that cannot be blamed
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: for very much except being a sheep. And if you
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: have spent years assuming God is keeping some kind of
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: account on you, that is worth hearing twice. The search
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: was never conditional on the sheep deserving it. Now, bring
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: it back to the title, because this is the point
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: where the answer has to become useful. The reason Psalm
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: 23 survives the worst hour of a person's life is
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: that it survives the loss of everything they normally bring
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: to God. When someone is truly at the end of themselves,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: several things go at once. Their words go, so they
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: cannot pray in sentences anymore. Their clarity goes, so they
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: no longer know what outcome to ask for. Their strength goes,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: so they cannot manage a task. Often their feelings go too,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: which is the part nobody warns you about. They believe,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: but they cannot feel a thing. Every one of those
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: losses would sink a passage of Scripture built on requests, conditions,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: or effort. Psalm 23 requires none of them. It has
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: no request to formulate, no condition to meet, and no
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: work to perform. it does not ask what you have
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: decided about god this week it only reports what is
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: already true about him that is why it belongs at
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: bedsides and gravesides and it is why it belongs in
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: the ordinary hard places too the apartment where the phone
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: does not ring' the house that has been too big
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: since the funeral,' the long afternoon when the body will
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: not do what it used to do' and the calendar
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: is empty,' the mind that turns on itself at four
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: in the morning and will not stop.' To all of that,
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: this Psalm says the same six things. There is a shepherd,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: and he is yours. You will not come up short.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: He knows where the food and the water are. When
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: you drift, he brings you back. The valley has an exit,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: and he is inside it with you. There is a
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: table with your name on it, and a house at
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: the end of the road. You do not have to
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: earn any of that. You do not have to feel it.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: You do not even have to be able to say
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: it out loud. Somebody once memorized this psalm for you
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: when you were young, and it is still in there,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: waiting for the night you need it. There is one
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: last place the shepherd appears, and it is the last
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: book of the Bible. John is shown an enormous crowd
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: of people who have come out of great suffering. They
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: are standing before the throne, and one of the elders
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: explains who they are and what will happen to them now.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: For the Lamb at the center of the throne will
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: be their shepherd. He will lead them to springs of
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: living water, and God will wipe away every tear from
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: their eyes. Revelation chapter 7 verse 17. Read that slowly,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: and you will hear Psalm 23 underneath it, leading, water,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: care that goes all the way down to the individual face.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: But something has changed, and it is the strangest turn
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: in the whole picture. The shepherd is a lamb. The
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: one doing the leading has been in the flock forever.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: He knows the terrain of the valley because he walked
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: it first, and he went further into it than any
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: of us will be asked to go. David described a
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: meal served in hostile company. Jesus held one in an
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: upper room on the night he was handed over with
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: the man who sold him seated at the same table.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: David wrote that his cup runs over. Jesus took a
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: cup that night and gave it away. David wrote that
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: he walks through the valley of the shadow of death.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Jesus walked into it and did not come out the
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: same way anyone else ever had. So the promise at
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: the end of the Bible is not a softer version
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: of the psalm. It is the psalm finished. The valley closes.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: The enemies are finally gone. The water is not still
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: water in a field, but springs that do not run dry.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: And the tears, which David never mentioned and never explained,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: are handled personally, one face at a time. If you
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: are in a hard season right now, you do not
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: need to work your way up to this psalm. That
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: is the entire point of it. You may be angry.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: You may not have prayed in months. You may be
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: sitting there with a faith that feels like a habit
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: and nothing more. Psalm 23 does not check any of
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: that at the door, because it never asks. It makes
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: six statements about a shepherd, and those statements were true
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: before you opened your Bible this morning, and they will
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: be true tomorrow, whether or not you manage to think
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: about them. So say the first line, and let the
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: rest come. The Lord is my shepherd.' Present tense. Not
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: when you are better, not when you have sorted yourself out,
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: not when the valley ends. You are being carried by
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: someone competent. You will have whatever you actually need. The
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: dark stretch you are in has an exit, and he
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: is walking it with you. There is a table already set,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: and there is a house at the end of the road,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: with your name on the door.' Goodness and mercy are
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: behind you today, on this day, the way they have
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: been on all the days of your life. And the
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: shepherd who went out into open country after one lost
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: animal has not once looked at you and decided you
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: were more trouble than you were worth. You do not
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: have to ask him for it. He is already yours.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: If this video helped you grow deeper in God's Word,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: I want to personally invite you to be part of
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: what we are building here. Every video on this channel
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: takes many hours of study and careful research to make
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: sure we bring you content that is faithful to Scripture
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: and worthy of your time. If you would like to
• 32:40
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• 32:44
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• 32:47
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• 32:53
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• 32:57
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• 33:01
  Speaker 1: to give right now, that is completely fine. The best
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: thing you can do is subscribe, share this video with
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: someone who needs to hear it, and keep studying God's
• 33:12
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• 33:16
  Speaker 1: God bless you richly.