The Bible Study Hour

Guest (Male): Is Jesus your lamb? Is he your shepherd? Today on the Bible Study Hour with Dr. James Boice, we'll turn our attention to Psalm 23, the Psalm of the Risen Lord. Psalm 23 is probably one of the most recognized and most often memorized portions of scripture in the Bible.

Welcome to the Bible Study Hour, a radio and internet broadcast with Dr. James Boice, preparing you to think and act biblically. Perhaps many of us could recite Psalm 23 from memory. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. But did you ever wonder why the Bible talks about us being like sheep? Let's listen together and learn more. If you have your Bible, turn to Psalm 23.

Dr. James Boice: Of all the many Psalms in the Psalter, I don't know of any that I would rather be looking at together with you today because Psalm 23 is the Psalm of the Risen Lord who is the shepherd of his church. This Psalm is undoubtedly the most beloved of all the Psalms in the Psalter. More words have probably been written about it, more things said than any other Psalm.

Charles Spurgeon loved it. He called it the pearl of Psalms. The great 19th-century preacher and commentator J.J. Stewart Perowne said there is no Psalm in which the absence of all doubt, misgiving, fear, and anxiety is so remarkable. Alexander MacLaren, one of the great preachers on the Psalm, said rightly, the world could spare many a large book better than this sunny little Psalm. And then he commented, it has dried many tears and supplied the mold into which many hearts have poured their peaceful faith.

Probably more people have memorized the 23rd Psalm than any other portion of scripture. There are people who know it even if they don't know anything else. We teach it in our Sunday schools. Ministers have used it to comfort people in the midst of trying seasons in their lives or intense physical suffering or families who are faced by the loss of a loved one through death. For many people, I suppose the words of this Psalm have been the last that they have uttered in this life.

Now, it's a Psalm that is remarkable throughout. Every single line is important, but if there was ever a Psalm that could stand alone on just a single verse, it's this Psalm, and the part it could stand alone on is verse one. Matter of fact, it could stand on just the first half of verse one because the first half of verse one says the Lord is my shepherd. We've heard that so many times that that's the kind of sentence that just rolls by us often without thinking, but it is certainly a remarkable juxtaposition of words.

On the one hand, you have the Lord. That's the great personal name for God, Jehovah. It was disclosed for the very first time to Moses at the burning bush and thereafter occurs more than 4,000 times in the pages of the Old Testament. It's a word that speaks of the holiness of God in his self-sufficiency and his timelessness because the best we can do in translating it is by the words I am that I am. It has within it the consonants of the verb to be.

And when God said to Moses, this is how you shall know me, I am that I am, he was saying I am the self-sufficient one and I am timeless in my self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency means that God doesn't need anything. He doesn't depend on anything. He has everything in himself. He doesn't need wisdom; he has all wisdom. What wisdom could you and I possibly add to God? He doesn't need power; he has all power. What power could you and I possibly add to God? He doesn't need anything. He is perfect in all his attributes, utterly self-sufficient. And if we can put it in terms that perhaps really meet the road, as we say, he does not need our help, he does not need our worship, he does not need our praise.

It's a delight to us that he's chosen to take praises from people such as us and allow us to work along with him, even calls us coworkers along with Jesus Christ, but he doesn't need these things. You see, he is sufficient into himself. And then he's timeless as well. When he says I am that I am, that's an eternal characteristic of the verb. What I was, I am, and what I am, I always will be, so I will always be unchanged and unchanging and unchangeable. That's the great God that's introduced to us in the very first half of the very first verse of this great Psalm.

And then think of the other half. The other half is shepherd. Again, we have a romantic idea of the shepherds, probably because of this Psalm and because of some of the things Jesus said about being the good shepherd, but being a shepherd wasn't a good job. That was just about the worst job you could have. People who were shepherds were almost nobodies in the ancient world. They weren't even allowed to testify in court because it was assumed that a shepherd would lie. You couldn't trust him.

If a family was poor and couldn't hire somebody miserable to be their shepherd and they had to use one of their own family, it was always the youngest son who got the dirty job. David was one of those younger sons. Sheep didn't smell good, and anybody who lingered around them ended up smelling like the sheep. Sheep had to be watched all the time. You couldn't put in an eight-hour shift and then check them into their pen and walk off and leave them. You had to be with them 24 hours a day, and some of the worst things that happened to sheep happened to the sheep at night when you wanted to be sleeping.

Sheep were utterly helpless, and so you had to undertake for them to do everything. Anybody who was in his right mind at all would do everything he could to see that somebody else got that dirty job. And yet this Psalm says the Lord is my shepherd. The Lord, Jehovah, great God Almighty, has condescended to take care of me, a helpless, wandering, foolish sheep. That's what that verse is saying.

The Lord Jesus Christ took it over into his vocabulary and teaching as well, and we know some of the things that he said. He talked about it in Luke 15 where he was defending the fact that he was mingling with the tax collectors and the poor people and those who had bad reputations, like prostitutes. And he said this: suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn't he leave the 99 in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home.

Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, rejoice with me; I've found my lost sheep. I tell you that in the same way there's more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who do not need to repent. That was Jesus' teaching as he took up that great theme and applied it to himself. Or again, there's the great teaching that we find in John 10. The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep, said Jesus. The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name, and he leads them out.

And when he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep, so when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep, and my sheep know me. Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.

That was Jesus teaching. He's talking about us. We're members of that one flock composed of those whom he has brought out of the sheep pen of Judaism and those whom he has brought out of the sheepfold of the Gentiles and those whom he has brought from nations far away and near at hand into that one great company of his people known as the church. And what he is saying to us is that I am the shepherd who has gone out to find those wandering ones and bring them to me. I, Jehovah, the second person of the Trinity, God Almighty, have come down to this earth to seek and to save that which was lost. And this world is that dark, wild, dangerous mountain into which you and I have wandered.

And he stooped low enough that he came down from the throne of glory to draw us and save us and take us to himself. That's what he teaches. So if Jesus took the Old Testament image that way and expanded upon it as we see he did, it's right for us to come to this Psalm and say, yes, Jesus is my shepherd. And because he is my shepherd, I will lack nothing. We can apply each part of this Psalm to ourselves in very practical ways. Now, I said the first half of this is remarkable, and it is. The Lord is my shepherd. It's the most remarkable part of the Psalm, but it doesn't mean that the rest of it isn't important or that the second half of that phrase isn't important also.

You see, the second half of verse one goes on to say I shall lack nothing. And the reason I shall lack nothing is because the Lord is my shepherd. If somebody else were my shepherd, I'd lack a lot. Even worse, if I'm my own shepherd, I can't manage my affairs. I can't deal with time and with eternity, and I am bound to perish unless God himself condescends to be my shepherd, which is exactly what he's done. So when I read this and discover that the Lord is my shepherd, I know that because he is, I shall lack nothing. And when it says nothing, it really does mean no thing. There is nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing for my good in this life or in eternity that I'm going to lack as long as the Lord is my good shepherd, as long as Jesus is my shepherd.

That's worth looking at. Each one of these verses suggests things that I won't lack if I really have a shepherd like this. What's the first? I will not lack rest. Why? Because he makes me to lie down in green pastures and he leads me beside the still waters. That's why I won't lack rest. It's interesting that the Psalm starts at that point because you and I probably wouldn't start it that way. We would start with activity, you see. We would say the Lord is my shepherd; what does he do? We'd say I'm the sheep in his fold; what's my responsibility? But that's not the way the Psalm begins. It always begins with rest, and it's a way of reminding us that in Christian things we always begin by resting in what God does for us.

He's the one who cares for us, and it's because he does that we can rest in him. Some years ago, a man who has since become a pastor but at one early stage in his life was a shepherd wrote a book called A Shepherd Looks at the 23rd Psalm. His name was Phillip Keller. He's written a number of books since, quite a few of them having to do with this kind of pastoral theme, but this was his first book and it really was very helpful. And he points out when he discusses this particular verse in part on the Psalm that it is very difficult to get a sheep to rest. We think of sheep standing around contentedly in the fields, but the reason they stand around contentedly as it seems in the fields is that they're really not content.

It's only when all of their needs are absolutely satisfied that a sheep will lie down. Here's what Keller says: it's almost impossible for them to be made to lie down unless four requirements are met. Owing to their timidity, they refuse to lie down unless they're free of all fear. If they have any fear at all, they want to be on their feet ready to run away. Because of the social behavior within a flock, sheep will not lie down unless they are free from friction with others of their kind. Sheep don't always get along very well with one another. It sounds terribly familiar. They have to be free of that before they'll lie down.

If tormented by flies or parasites, sheep will not lie down. That can be a very bothersome thing. Only when free of these pests can they relax. And lastly, he says sheep will not lie down as long as they feel a need of finding food. They must be free from all hunger. As long as they can eat anything, they'll stand on their feet and keep eating. And it's only when they are absolutely full, unable, as we say, to take another mouthful, that they'll lie down. Free from fear, friction, flies, and famine is the way I'd put it, four F's.

And here's the interesting thing as Keller points out: it's only the shepherd who can provide that. The sheep can't provide it for themselves. He has to create an environment in which they're free from fear. They've got to trust him. He's got to create an environment in which they're free from friction. He has to create an environment in which they're free from parasites, pests, things that would disturb their peace. He has to see that they have food to eat, water to drink, and every other need is met. That is what the Lord Jesus Christ does with us.

You know how he put it. He said it again and again in various ways in his teaching. He said I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry; he who believes on me will never be thirsty. On another occasion, Jesus said come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. On another occasion, Jesus said peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I don't give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled; do not be afraid. That's our good shepherd; that's what Jesus does with us. And if we don't have peace, if we are not resting, it's because we're not resting in him. The deficiency is not on God's side; the deficiency is with us.

Well, secondly, the Psalm says that we will not lack life or health. Why? Because he restores my soul, verse three. That phrase restores my soul can be taken in a couple of ways in Hebrew. It could be an idiom for he turns my soul around again. In other words, I've been going astray and so he converts me. That's certainly a proper interpretation of it. But it could also be simply a metaphor saying that when he restores my soul, since the word soul is also the word for life, he restores my life when I'm sick or spiritually ill. He provides the restoration that I need. He is not only the good shepherd, he's the good physician.

Keller introduces something quite interesting at this point, which I suppose is right because after all he's spent many years with sheep. He said there is a phenomenon known to all shepherds of what is called a cast or a cast down sheep. What happens is this: a particularly fat and healthy sheep or one that is very heavy with wool, when it lies down, might lie down in a little depression on the ground. Feel nice; it's sort of a comfortable place for it to be.

But as it settles in there, there sometimes occurs a kind of shift of the center of gravity of the sheep, and it finds itself far enough over in this little declivity that its feet leave the ground. It is then beset by panic. Its feet are off the ground; it'll struggle to try to get its feet back down on the ground and sometimes it only makes it worse. And what happens is that the sheep rolls over and there it's stuck; it just can't literally, it cannot get up again.

That's a cast sheep. And a sheep in that condition is in very bad shape. Gases build up, apparently; it cuts off the circulation to the limbs. And a sheep that's a cast sheep, if it's a hot day or whatever, can die within a few hours. The only way the sheep can be rescued is by the shepherd. Nothing else is going to get the sheep up. The other sheep don't do it, by the way. It takes the shepherd to rescue the sheep, and a shepherd that sees a sheep in that condition will rush to it right away, will care for it.

What a shepherd will do is massage its limbs to get the circulation back again. It takes a while before that sheep is able to get back up on its feet and go off again without simply falling over once again. But that's what shepherds do. They exercise that care. I don't know whether David had that in mind, but it's very likely that he did. He restores my soul, he says. That means that if I'm in the care of a shepherd like that, a shepherd who cares for the sheep not just in a general way as if Jesus said, oh, I love my church, all the many millions of them, but rather Jesus who says I love you and I love you and I love you.

And because I am the eternal, all-seeing, all-powerful God, I can minister to you each one. It doesn't make any difference to me how many there are; I care for each one just as much as anybody else. And when you find yourself cast down, I'm always going to be there by your side to see you get back on your feet. Don't we ever talk that way? We talk about being flat on our back as Christians sometimes, and there are circumstances in life that'll do that to us. All of a sudden, bam! Out of nowhere, we find ourselves knocked down.

And in that condition, left to ourselves, we really aren't able to get back up. And that's when the good shepherd comes and ministers to us. We can say as David did, he restores my soul. Well, that's the second thing. The third thing is guidance, same verse. He guides me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. I'm glad he guides us because if he didn't, we would certainly be lost. Everybody who talks about sheep says they're the most stupid of creatures. And I guess that's true, except perhaps human beings who must be even dumber.

Sheep will wander off everywhere. It doesn't make any difference what kind of care they have. They can be in the care of an excellent shepherd in a perfect pasture with lots of water to drink, and somehow, even if the pasture is closely fenced in, they'll find a little hole in that fence, wriggle through, and go off into a field in which they are going to perish ultimately because it's a barren field or there's no water, there's nobody to care for them.

And we're like that, aren't we? Here is the Lord Jesus Christ our shepherd, a perfect shepherd. He makes all our paths paths of pleasantness; all his ways for us are ways of peace. But we get restless in his care, and if there's a little fence there and it has a hole in it, well, we make it our business to see if we can't get through the hole and find something else for ourselves. Wandering off, you see, we do it again and again. And that's another reason why we need the good shepherd.

We need a shepherd to guide us. We don't know the way in which we should go. That's why it says in a later Psalm that he guides us with his eye. That is, if we look to him, he will guide us with his eye. His eye is on us and he'll show us the way in which we should go. And when we look to him, he will certainly do that. He's the risen savior, the good shepherd of his sheep. There's a fourth thing we won't lack if we're in the care of this good shepherd, and that is safety. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

Lots of people have talked about that as if that were death itself, and I guess there's nothing terribly wrong with that when we do walk through the shadow of death on the very threshold of the reality. Certainly, our good shepherd is with us. But I think in the context of the Psalm that probably is not what it's talking about. What you have in the Psalm is a passage through life, and here in the beginning, in verse four, you have something that is quite different. What Keller says is that you have a picture of what happens during the year of a shepherd's care of his sheep.

He takes them out of the winter pen and leads them off into the fresh spring meadows where you have all the provision of the early verses and then up toward the highlands where they're going to spend the summer. And on the way, they have to pass through the valleys, the valleys that have steep rocks on either side and ravines and where danger literally lurks around every corner. These valleys are the places where the wild animals lurk. They're places where storms will suddenly sweep along or where floods will suddenly come down the mountainside.

Because the sun penetrates not well into the valleys, the valleys are literally filled with shadows which at any moment may become the shadow of death. There's a particular problem with this phase of life, you see, and the problem with passing through the valley of the shadow of death is fear. We're afraid. And the answer to that fear is the shepherd. There's nothing that provides comfort and peace in the midst of such fear like the shepherd's presence. The sheep know it, and we should know it too. Many people have pointed out at this point in the Psalm the pronoun that refers to the Lord changes. Have you noticed that before in your study? Up to now, it is the third person, he, he, and he.

See verse two: he makes me lie down, he leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul, he guides me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. But now in verse four, I'm walking through the valley of the shadow of death, and notice what happens: I will fear no evil because you are with me. It changes to the second person, you see, for you are with me, your rod and your staff they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. Isn't that nice? You see, faced by the danger, the sheep draws close to the shepherd and knows comfort because of that shepherd's presence.

If we were only as wise as sheep in that respect. We go through the danger and we say, well, I better do something about this, and so we take it into our hands and we get active and we forget the presence of our Lord. He's the one that we need and that's what's provided. Not only don't we lack safety, we don't lack provision either because that's what verse five begins to talk about. Some of the commentators say that at this point the imagery of the Psalm changes, and I suspect as I look at the text before me that the New International Version translators thought so too because there's a blank line between verse four and verse five.

The argument would be like this: in the first part, the Lord is pictured as the shepherd. In the second part, he's pictured as a host who prepares a table for us and who enables us to dwell in his house forevermore. That may well be. There certainly does seem to be a change. And yet Keller suggests that it really isn't that. It's true that the imagery changes but not with the thought that now we're no longer talking about sheep. He says when you have led the sheep up from the lowlands through the valley, you lead them to the high table lands or mesas.

That's where they graze during the summer. It's where the grass is richest. And he says that's what's involved here: you prepare a mesa before me in the presence of my enemies. The enemies are about, but the shepherd goes ahead and he makes a preparation of this land. Apparently, many things that have to be done: poisonous plants have to be removed, pitfalls, dangers have to be avoided. The shepherd, the wise shepherd, goes ahead of the sheep and makes this kind of preparation. And perhaps, if Keller is right, this is what David is saying: the Lord our good shepherd actually goes before us and prepares the way so that we might have an abundance of provision even in very dangerous times.

I'm sure that is just like the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, just before his crucifixion, he said to the disciples, I'd like to eat this Passover with you before I go. And so he made preparation for it, and then he ate it with them. I think that is something of what the images are telling us here. There are a couple of interesting ideas that are added: you anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. He's talking there of oil and wine, two great staples of the abundant life in the Near East.

Oil that was crushed from the olives and used to make the face shine. You see, in a hot land where they had very little shelter if they were out working at all, the skin would become very burnt and cracked, and oil was a very precious commodity. And when you visited a friend's house, oil would be given to you to anoint your face. It's why David says on one occasion speaking of the Lord, he makes his face shine upon me, perhaps referring to his celestial glory but perhaps also suggesting by this image that the Lord's face is the face of a friend.

And in the same way the hot, dry lands with dust about would parch the throat. And when you visited the house of a friend, the proper thing to do would be for the friend to offer wine, you see, which bathes the throat. David speaks very well on that on one occasion; he speaks of God thanking him, God he says, who gives wine that gladdens the heart of man and oil that makes his face shine. Interesting thing about this, you see, is that in that culture it took time to grow the grapes and crush them and make the wine. And it took time to grow the olives and crush them and make the oil.

And so if there were turmoil in the time, if it was a time of war, these were the things that were let slide because there wasn't time to do them. You had to have a certain measure of stability to provide these things. And that's what is provided when we're in the keeping of the good shepherd. He has the time and he has prepared these things for us so that we might not lack any good thing. A lot of Christians are lacking a lot of good things, but it's because they're not waiting upon God himself to provide them.

We think we can provide better for ourselves and we think we can do it in our way and we seek it in the world's way. And what we find is that those things that we thought were so precious, instead of being soothing and comforting, actually turn to ashes in our mouth. God allows that to happen so that we will learn that the only really good care comes from him. But the last thing we're told is that we won't lack a heavenly home. Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

This matter of the heavenly home came home to me in a very powerful way when I was reading that classic book Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence, who is better known as Lawrence of Arabia, the man who got all of the Arab forces together, the Bedouin tribes, to resist and eventually drive out the Turks during the First World War. Lawrence begins that book by reflecting on the significance of Damascus. It's interesting because that's where the book ends. They have all the battles and eventually they conquer Damascus.

And so he begins the book by talking about this city, and he describes it in this way. He said the warring tribes in the Near East, that area that is bounded by the Mediterranean Sea on the west and the Gulf of Aqaba to the south and the great desert and so forth to the far side, these warring tribes, when they would come out of the desert strong enough to possess the land, would always attack the highlands of Judah because that's where you had the abundant rainfall and where you had the olive trees and the vines and so on, where the best land was to be found.

That, incidentally, is exactly what the Israelites did under the command of Joshua when they drove out the Canaanites who were there before them. But said Lawrence, what happens and has happened again and again countless times in the history of the Near East is this: the powerful nation will drive out those who are occupying the highlands, and when they're displaced, what they tend to do is just move a little bit further south toward the Negev.

And when they do that, they drive out those who are occupying those lands, and those people drive out those who are a little bit further south. And they work their way the whole way down and back up the other side until the weakest tribes of all are pushed out into the desert. And the only thing that's before them is Damascus. And he said for that reason, Damascus has always had a certain magical quality for the Arab people. It is a symbol of paradise, of rest after the long and dangerous pilgrimage of this life.

Now, you see, we have such a rest at the end of our pilgrimage. Only it's not Damascus, as beautiful as that may have seemed in the eyes of the Arabs with its abundant irrigated fields and date palms and such things. We have a home and our home is in heaven. And Jesus Christ has gone there to prepare it for us. That's what he said before he left this earth. He turned to his disciples and said, I'm going to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I'm going to come again and receive you unto myself that where I am, there you may be also.

I shall not lack rest, I shall not lack life and health, nor guidance, nor safety, nor provision, nor a heavenly home because Jesus has gone to prepare that heavenly home for me. Let me give you one last passage. The apostle John is writing toward the very end of the Bible in the seventh chapter of Revelation, and here's what he writes. He's speaking of that home: never again will they hunger, never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them nor any scorching heat because the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd.

He will lead them to springs of living water and God will wipe away all tears from their eyes. Isn't that beautiful? That heavenly home has been provided for us by our good shepherd who became himself a lamb for our salvation, a lamb who was led to the slaughter, the innocent for the guilty, in order that you and I might be saved. So I end this study by asking the question: is he your lamb? Has he died for you? Is he your shepherd? If he is and has, you will not lack rest or life or guidance or safety or provision or a heavenly home. You will lack nothing in life; you will lack nothing in eternity. You will be eternally blessed. And you will be able to say with King David: the Lord is my shepherd. And the only proper response to that is hallelujah. Let's pray.

Our Father, we thank you that you have become our shepherd, we who are so foolish and wander away and so needy because you loved us and love us. Our Father, teach us what it is to follow and appreciate and love such a wonderful shepherd as Jesus Christ has become for us. Amen and Amen.

Guest (Male): Thank you for listening to this message from the Bible Study Hour, a listener-supported ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. The Alliance is a coalition of pastors, scholars, and churchmen who hold to the historic creeds and confessions of the reformed faith and who proclaim biblical doctrine in order to foster a reformed awakening in today's church. To learn more about the Alliance, visit AllianceNet.org. And while you're there, visit our online store, Reformed Resources, where you can find messages and books from Dr. Boice and other outstanding teachers and theologians or ask for a free Reformed Resources catalog by calling 1-800-488-1888.

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