In this sermon, the preacher addresses troubled and heavy hearts, comparing them to the bewildered disciples in the days of Jesus. He emphasizes that Jesus brings peace to bewildered hearts and encourages the listeners to find contentment in God's will. The preacher then reads from three familiar Psalms - 22, 23, and 24 - highlighting the depth of suffering in Psalm 22 and the comforting image of God as a shepherd in Psalm 23. He concludes by reminding the audience that while God may not provide everything they want, He promises to meet all their needs.

Turn to the Psalms, please, and I want to read from three very familiar Psalms, those three little Psalms that are so often linked together, Psalm 22, 23, and 24. The second Psalm. And the Psalm begins in the depths, of course. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not, and in the night season, and am not silent. But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in thee, they trusted, and thou didst deliver them. They cried unto thee, and were delivered, they trusted in thee, and were not confounded. But I am a worm, and no man, a reproach of men, and despised of the people. And against the Lord Jesus in this Psalm, there comes, in verse 12, many bulls of Bashan, and the bulls of Bashan descending round. In verse 14, I am poured out like water in all his weakness, his bones are out of joint, his heart is like wax, melted in the midst of him. And in verse 16, dogs have compassed me, the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me, they pierced my hands and my feet. And not only the bulls of Bashan, and the dogs, and the lion, but down in verse 21, at the end of that verse, the horns of the unicorns, or the horns of the wild oxen. Then, when we go to the end of that Psalm, the very last expression in that Psalm, he hath done this, which is exactly the same as, it is finished. And then we come to the shepherd's psalm. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. There follows those familiar verses to which we refer later on, and then we come in Psalm 24 into the glory. And the question is asked in verse 3, who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, or who shall stand in his holy place? There is a holy hill and a holy house, and the answer is, he that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully, he shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, and I think that should be O God of Jacob. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, even lift them up ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory. The Lord will bless now that familiar and interesting reading from his word. Now there is no difficulty whatever in finding the Lord Jesus in the Psalms. This is a very easy and a very delightful occupation to look for him in this lovely book of the Psalms. I'm sure you know that originally there were five books of Psalms and that these five have been put together into one Psalter. It's not so well known that the five books of Psalms compare exactly with the five books of Moses. We're not just interested in that comparison tonight, but it is a very interesting study to take the first book of the Psalms and compare it with the book of Genesis, to take the second book of Psalms and compare that with Exodus, and you find that the themes are exactly the same, and the five books of Psalms compare in a very remarkable way with the first five books of our Bible. Now there are certain of these Psalms which our brethren refer to as being messianic. Now that big word is simply an adjective that is formed from the word Messiah. You take the end part away and you change it and you make that word Messiah messianic, and it simply means that these are Psalms that have to do with the Messiah. Now if you ask our brethren how many messianic Psalms there are, you get a variety of answers because your counting of the messianic Psalms depends upon your interpretation of what a messianic Psalm is, and if you interpret it in the usual way, I think that you will find that there are 16 messianic Psalms. Now what we mean by messianic Psalms is this. All of these Psalms have an original reason, or most of them rather, have an original reason for having been written. So that you read Psalm 24, and you remember that this goes back to the books of Samuel and the book of the Kings and Chronicles, and it has to do with the taking of the ark back in behind curtains on Mount Zion, a great day when the ark was recovered from the Philistines, and when eventually it was brought back to Mount Zion. That was a great day, and for that great day this Psalm 24 was apparently written. You can see of course that Psalm 22 has an original reason too, and that from the depths of his depression the Psalmist has written the 22nd Psalm. The 2nd Psalm is a messianic Psalm, and so is the 8th Psalm, and Psalm 16, and Psalm 40, and there are 16 of them in all, Psalms that have an original reason for having been written, but when you have read them and thought of the original reason, you say to yourself, now that's all right, but that Psalm has not really been properly fulfilled yet, and you read Psalm 24, and who would be naive or simple enough to believe that Psalm 24 applied to the bringing back of the ark, and nothing else, I'm sure none of us would be happy with that, and we can see that Psalm 24 has a fulfillment yet, a fulfillment that waits for Messiah, and so when there are Psalms that wait for their ultimate fulfillment to the coming of the Messiah, we say that those Psalms are messianic, and if that is the proper interpretation, then there are 16 messianic Psalms. Sometimes now a whole Psalm will be messianic, like this one here Psalm 24, or maybe Psalm 22, and then it might be that sometimes a part of a Psalm is messianic, and sometimes it might be that there's only one verse. Now some brethren have a very strict interpretation as to what a messianic Psalm is, and they say that a messianic Psalm is one that is quoted in relation to the Messiah in the New Testament. Now with the greatest of respect, I think that that falls down, because the 72nd Psalm, so far as I know, is not quoted in the New Testament, and yet it is obviously a messianic, and a kingdom, a millennial Psalm, and strange as it may seem, I don't think that Psalm 24 is quoted either in the New Testament in relation to the Messiah, and who would doubt that Psalm 24 is a messianic Psalm. So you see the interpretation of what is messianic and what is not, it becomes a little bit difficult. We not argue about it at all, but nevertheless there are certain Psalms which are very definitely messianic. Now you take again the problem, the 1st Psalm, I'm sure that our brethren do not regard the 1st Psalm as being a messianic Psalm, and yet we read that Psalm, and we read of a blessed man who prospers, and his delight is in the law of the Lord, and he brings forth fruit, and he lives for the delight of God, and the joy of God, and who again would doubt that the blessed man of that Psalm is none other than the Lord Jesus, and yet none of our brethren would regard that as a messianic Psalm. So I don't know how you will interpret what exactly, or define what is a messianic Psalm, but I know that the Lord Jesus is right through the Psalms, and we're not going to worry much about an exact definition this evening. Again it's very interesting that when our brethren list the usual 16 messianic Psalms, they don't include the Psalm 23. That is an amazing thing too, because who else can the shepherd of Psalm 23 be other than our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and here no doubt are many things that relate to the Messiah. So anyway we leave that problem now as to what is messianic and what is not, and I'm sure that we will all agree that right through the Psalms it is a very easy and delightful occupation to find the Lord Jesus. Now what I want to do this evening, I want to dwell mostly upon the middle of these three Psalms. The middle one, the well-known Psalm 23, and what I want to do with it is neither new nor original. It's not mine, but it has been a great joy to my heart, and I remember when once upon a time it came new to me for the very first time I heard it, and some of my brethren have heard it many times, and I know that somewhere in the meeting there will be someone and this will be new to you, and I hope that it will delight you as much as it delighted me when I heard it for the first time. I want to look at Psalm 23 in a fairly usual way, but before we get to it just a little remark about the setting of these three lovely Psalms. Now they have often been linked together. Indeed they're hard to separate. Harder to separate than they are to link together. It's a very easy and obvious link to see these three little Psalms as a kind of a triad, a kind of a trio, a triplet of Psalms. In each sense, in each Psalm you might say that we have the shepherd. Now I know that strictly speaking perhaps that might not be so. The middle one is principally the shepherd Psalm, but nevertheless the shepherd of Psalm 23 is in Psalm 22, and he is again in Psalm 24, only with this difference that in Psalm 22 we are looking back. In Psalm 24 we are looking on forward, and in Psalm 23 we are engaged with a ministry that is present. In Psalm 22 the shepherd is surrounded by dogs, in Psalm 23 he's surrounded by sheep, and in Psalm 24, while they might not be mentioned, there is no doubt that he is surrounded by angels. He is the Lord of hosts. Psalm 22 is a going back to sorrow that is past, will never be repeated. Psalm 24 looks on to millennial glory that has yet to come, it has not been enjoyed yet, and Psalm 23 is the interim period, and it is the present shepherd ministry of the Lord Jesus. Psalm 22 you might say we have the Savior, and in Psalm 23 we have the shepherd, and in Psalm 24 we have the sovereign, and it seems that in an endless variety of ways you can link these three little Psalms together. You can see again very simply that you can put Psalm 22 into John chapter 11, you can put Psalm 23 into John chapter 12, and you can put Psalm 24 into John chapter 13. It seems again that they link themselves together very nicely like that, and over and over again our brethren have linked these little Psalms together, and I want to just mention one or two little things about Psalm 22 and 24, and then to go principally to the Psalm 23. Some time ago on a visit to Israel I came across a guest house which belonged to one of the kibbutzim in Israel, and it had a most peculiar name this guest house, and I said to a Jewish friend who was with me, I said would you mind pronouncing that name for me, and he said well, and if I can repeat what he said, and I could see it of course, he said we call it I said what are the symbols of there beside the name, and he said well now that symbol there, he said that is a hind, it's like a young deer, and there it was sort of frolicking about a symbol of a young deer, a hind, and the other symbol at the other side of the name was a rising sun, and that of course he said is the symbol of the morning. I said am I right in saying that that is exactly the title of the 22nd Psalm? He said that is the right, that is the title of Psalm 22, and perhaps even in the margin of your Bible you might see that that strange title actually means the hind of the morning, and it's a very very interesting title, and when you read the Psalm with that in mind, well it does bring out the sufferings of the Lord Jesus in a very tender and a very beautiful way. In this Psalm the Lord Jesus is seen as the hind of the morning. The hind of the morning, well it is a very gentle and a very almost defenseless little creature. It has been said about it in fact that its only defenses are a keen sense of smell and fleetness of foot, and when it immediately, when it smells danger, it immediately then it takes off, and this is its only defense that is very fleet of foot. It senses danger and immediately it takes flight. Apart from that you cannot imagine the hind fighting anything or anyone. It is a very tender, a very delicate, and a very very gentle creature. Well we see of course a picture of gentleness here and weakness apparent in the Lord Jesus. They call it the hind of the morning because it seems to be at the mercy of every other creature, and it comes out in the early hours of the morning that it might perhaps nibble at the grass, that it might refresh itself with the morning dew, or that it might eat a little bit or drink a little bit before the other creatures, the other animals are up and about. And so because it stirs at that very early hour and feeds before the other creatures, they refer to it as the hind of the morning, and here is the Lord Jesus in this psalm like the hind of the morning, and as you read down the psalm you see all these others against him, surrounding him, encompassing him, and eventually hounding him to the kill. You see him surrounded by the dogs, you see him with the bulls of Bashan roaring upon him, and you see him with the lion attacking him, and then the wild oxen as well. And to read down the psalm with the Lord Jesus being hunted always as the hind of the morning by these fierce creatures that does bring out I think a very tender aspect of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus. Now about the bulls of Bashan, there is no problem in the interpretation. We mentioned the other evening that scripture usually interprets itself, and if you want to know what the bulls of Bashan symbolize, you've only got to go back to the prophet Amos, and you'll find that Amos indeed refers to the leaders of the nation as being like the proud cattle of Bashan. So Amos used that expression as does this psalm for the leaders of the nation, and here they are, the proud bulls of Bashan, the leaders of the nation, the Pharisees, the priests, the scribes, the doctors of the law, the Levites, the leaders of the people, and the leaders of the nation of course, they beset him round and gaped upon him and encompassed him like bulls of Bashan. The dogs come, and there wouldn't be any problem interpreting who the dogs are, because the Gentiles have ever been referred to as dogs, and the Gentile dogs came when the bulls of Bashan had finished with them as it were, and had exhausted their authority, then they handed them over to the dogs, the Gentiles, the Romans, and for the rest of that night the Lord Jesus was in the hand of Gentile dogs that again encompassed him, and we know what they did to him. Now the unicorn is of course a fictitious animal, it doesn't actually exist, and it seems that this word unicorn is more properly the wild buffalo or the wild oxen, and with great spreading of antlers, apparently what they did in bygone days was this, they took a victim and they actually spread him on the antlers of the wild buffalo or the wild oxen, and then they set it free either in the wilderness or else in the midst of the herd, and they stampeded the herd. You can imagine the suffering that that would have been, a man tied to the antlers of the buffalo and at the mercy of the herd. Perhaps this is the mass of the people, and after the Lord Jesus has been encompassed by bulls and by dogs, we try to imagine him going through the narrow little streets of Jerusalem on that last morning and being led out to Golgotha, and the crowds thronging and pushing and pressing and jostling him. It seems that he's at the mercy of the herd on his way to Golgotha, and of course the lion was there, the devil himself energizing everything in his diabolical way, and all of these fierce creatures against the tender and delicate hind of the morning. So it is a psalm of the sufferings of Christ in a very dramatic and a very graphic way, and we are glad this evening that all that suffering is passed, never to be repeated. It's all done, and it belongs to days that are gone forever. Now there are some brethren who believe that when the Lord Jesus was on the cross, that he actually quoted this psalm, that he may have been meditating upon it and quoted it all the way through. That might well be. Certainly he experienced this psalm as he hung up on the cross, and he certainly did repeat the first verse, my God, my God, why didst thou forsake me? And as is not just so well known, he also quoted the last verse when he cried, it is finished, he hath done this, is exactly the same. And if he quoted the first verse and the last verse, it might well be that our Lord was meditating upon this psalm during the hours that are referred to in the early part of the psalm as the daytime and the night season. For three hours between nine o'clock in the morning and twelve o'clock noon, the daylight, the daytime hours, and then that supernatural night season from twelve o'clock midday until three in the afternoon. In the daytime and in the night season, I'm not silent, and in the daylight and in the darkness, the Lord Jesus probably meditated upon this psalm. So the suffering is done, the suffering is over, the work is finished, the work is done, and psalm 22 is a psalm of the past. It lives on certainly in the minds of his people and in our hearts, and we shall never how gladly we sing this evening, tis past the dark and dreary night. So the 22nd psalm is a psalm of suffering that is ended. Now psalm 24 is a psalm of glory that has yet to come, and the glory of that psalm I take to be millennial. I know that there was an original reason for the writing of the psalm, as we have said, and in its original reason, original setting, this psalm is related to the ark of the covenant. Now some brethren in interpretation, they relate it then to the ascension of the Lord Jesus. I'm sure that there might be a lovely picture of the ascension here, but I don't think that that would exhaust the meaning of the psalm. Some think that this is indeed the meaning of the psalm. They think that this is the interpretation of it, and it is the Lord Jesus going back, going up, and going into the glory, and the cry goes out, lift up your heads, and be ye lifted up, and the King of glory shall come in. And then the cry comes out to question, who is this King of glory? And some would say that the Lord strong and mighty is the Lord mighty in the battle of Calvary, with rights to go up into the glory. And when again the cry goes out, who is this King of glory? He's the Lord of hosts going up, and going in, and sitting down in the heavens. And in connection with that, they would quote us that lovely verse of that lovely hymn, hark those bursts of acclamation, hark those loud triumphant chords. Jesus takes the highest station, oh what joy that sight affords. And some dear brethren I know will interpret the psalm like that, and think that the ascension is the actual meaning of the psalm. Now I would think that that might be seen by way of illustration, but that the real meaning of the psalm is rather a prophetic meaning, and that it has to do with the, not the ascension, but perhaps linked with Armageddon, with the battle of Armageddon. And the Lord strong and mighty in Armageddon, and the Lord of hosts now, he's coming to Jerusalem, and it is of course very symbolical and dramatic language, and the cry goes out for the gates of the city to be opened, which had been closed against him when he was here before. But now he comes with rights in battle, and personal rights, and moral rights, because the question is asked, who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Who shall stand in his holy place? And the Lord with clean hands, and a pure heart, with no deceit, and no vanity, but mighty in battle, and the Lord of hosts, he goes into the city with rights, and the King of glory goes in to take what men denied him when he was here the first time. I think again that if you want to see the psalm in a very practical way, you can relate it not to the ark, not to the ascension, not to Armageddon, but you can very well relate it through the assembly, and see that the very same thing ought to apply in the assembly, that we should indeed open the doors, and receive him, and make room for him, and put him in glory in the midst of us, and give him his rightful place, and acknowledge his lordship, and his person, and maybe the cry to open up, and let him in, it's very very like the cry to Laodicea in Revelation chapter 3. So again in a way by application you can relate the psalm to the assembly. Whichever way you view it, it certainly is the glory of the Lord Jesus that is in view, and I suggest that the true meaning is a prophetic one, and it has to do with his glory in millennial, in the millennium, his glory after Armageddon and entering into the millennium. So the psalm 22 is past, and the psalm 24 is not yet, and we tonight are glad that we enjoy the lovely psalm 23 in a very practical way, and I want to very simply now do this with this little psalm just by way of suggestion. You know that the psalm opens with what has been called a compound title of Jehovah. Now what we mean by that is this, this great name Jehovah is found about seven and a half thousand times in our Bible, seven and a half thousand times our God is called Jehovah, and on many of those occasions that word, that name is actually linked with the Lord Jesus. Who could doubt that it is he with whom it is linked here, the Lord is my shepherd, and as we see his shepherd character and his shepherd ministry, and remember that this word Lord here is the word Jehovah, well then that's very beautiful and very thrilling to think that the very deity of Christ is enshrined here in the opening remark, but this is what is called a compound title for this reason. Several times, maybe ten times in all, this great name Jehovah is linked with another word, and a hyphen is put between, and we have a hyphenated title of Jehovah. Now on ten different occasions, in ten different ways, that name Jehovah is hyphenated with another word like that, and our brethren call these the compound titles of Jehovah. Now some of them are very familiar, and some of them are very strange and very hard to pronounce, but nevertheless they're very beautiful, and it has often been pointed out, I repeat again, that this is neither new nor original, and many of our brethren have enjoyed it for years, but in this little psalm you can put at least seven of those ten titles of Jehovah. Now I think that we've got one of them over in Psalm 24, the Lord of hosts is another one, and that is the great title Jehovah Sabbath, that the Lord of Sabbath is the Lord of hosts, and that is over in Psalm 24, but in Psalm 23 you can find very easily seven of these great titles, and they're very very beautiful, and perhaps you'll not remember all of them, but I trust that some of them will touch your heart and find you looking to the psalm. Now the first title is the title Jehovah Lohi, it's R-O-H-I, and you don't worry if you find a variety of ways of spelling words that have been translated from Hebrew into English, because that's always a problem, you see they don't in Hebrew have vowels in the same sense as we have vowels, they have these hard consonants, and then they just indicate the vowels by tiny little marks that look more like R commas and apostrophes, and little little jots and tipples as we say, that sort of thing, so it means that sometimes when a Hebrew word is being put into English, you find all sorts of variation in the spelling of the word, but you don't worry about that too much, and you might find a variation of this one, but generally speaking it is R-O-H-I, Jehovah Lohi, and it simply means Jehovah my shepherd, so that what is happening here is that David is not making a statement, you notice the little word is, he's not making a statement, the Lord is my shepherd, that's all right, I know, I'm not complaining about that, the Lord is my shepherd, but this is rather an exclamation, and it is the exclamation of a title, and what David is saying is this, he just says Jehovah Lohi, Jehovah my shepherd, and then the rest of the psalm is only like an exposition of that shepherd character of Jehovah, and so one of these compound titles right in the very opening words, and Jehovah Lohi is here, the Lord my shepherd is right here, now there's something I don't understand, I shall never I think understand it, you know that in what we call Christendom today, there are many men who deny the deity of Christ, now I don't know why a man denies his deity and still wants to be known as Christian, but it is a fact, and we've got to be realistic, there are men who call themselves Christian, and yet they deny the deity of Christ, and sometimes I say to some of these men, I don't know whether it's always right or profitable to talk to them or not, but sometimes I say to them, we begin to talk about the shepherd ministry of the Lord Jesus, and I find a very interesting way to approach them, so tell me which chapter in the New Testament would you say was the great shepherd chapter, the great shepherd chapter of the New Testament, no hesitation, John chapter 10, and in John chapter 10, what we call the shepherd discourse, the Lord Jesus says, I am the good shepherd, and you say, who is the shepherd of John 10, no problem, the shepherd of John 10 is Jesus of Nazareth, whom we call our Lord Jesus, he is the shepherd of John chapter 10. Now we go back to Psalm 23, tiny little psalm, hardly 120 words, maybe a word or two short of 120, but we seem to read it on every occasion, when brethren are sick we read it, when people are bereaved we read it, when people are glad we read it, when they're rejoicing we sing it, and it seems that at all times it's very profitable to read or to sing the 23rd Psalm. If I were to ask some of these men, which is the great shepherd passage of the Old Testament, no problem, Psalm 23. So I say, who is the shepherd of Psalm 23, oh no doubt again that the shepherd of Psalm 23 is Jesus, that's how anyone that bearing the name of Christian would interpret the 23rd Psalm, it is of course Jesus again himself. So I say, Jesus then is the shepherd in John 10, that's right, and Jesus is the shepherd in Psalm 23, that's right. But you see, the shepherd in Psalm 23 is Jehovah, is therefore the shepherd of John 10 Jehovah as well. In fact, is then Jesus of Nazareth and Jehovah of eternity the one and the same person? Oh no, oh no, they don't, I don't understand that now, you see, this is not logical. If the shepherd of John 10 and the shepherd of Psalm 23 are the one and the same person, then Jesus of John 10 and Jehovah of Psalm 23 are the one and the same person. Now that's logic apart from spirituality and apart from theology, if the two shepherds are the one and the same, then Jesus is Jehovah, Jesus of John 10 is Jehovah of Psalm 23. Now we have no problem there and we exclaim like David did, Jehovah rohi, the Lord is indeed my shepherd and so the psalm opens with a great compound title and enshrined in that title is the actual deity of the Lord Jesus. Now you know of course, before we go to the next one, that the Jews have a problem with the name Jehovah. They refer to it as the unpronounceable name, they call it the unwritable name, they will not write it, they will not pronounce it, they maybe sometimes put Jah or they might sometimes put a J or a Y and then a dash behind it but they think perhaps it is such a majestic and awful and terrible title that it is not reverent even to pronounce it or to write it. So it's referred to as the unpronounceable and the unwritable name of Jehovah. Now we have been brought into a holy familiarity with such and one and the name Jehovah or the title itself of course, it is actually a couple of letters taken from a word which means he will be and another couple of letters taken from another Hebrew word which means he is and then another couple of letters taken from another word which means he was and you put all these together and it simply is he which is and which was and which is to come and I think it's Mr. Newberry who points out that the nearest definition you have of it is that in Revelation chapter 1 where the apostle sends greetings from him which is and which was and which is to come. That is the nearest definition to the indefinable name, the great unpronounceable name of Jehovah and again I think it's Mr. Newberry who says that it is a gathering together in one name of the three periods of existence past and present and future all gathered together in one majestic name and this glorious person to whom past present and future don't really apply because he lives in an eternal present that's why he calls himself the I am but to suit himself to my tiny little mind and my limited intelligence he calls himself the one who was and who is and who is to come that's his infinity or his eternity is brought out in that name just to make it sort of intelligible to my tiny little mind as much as it can be and when I think of the greatness of Jehovah of one who compasses in himself all these periods of existence who never did have a beginning and never had never will have an end and who lives in an eternal present who never strictly had a past nor a future but lives in an eternal now as our brethren say when I think of all that greatness and think that I can look up and say Jehovah rohi such and one is my shepherd that's a tremendous thing and the rest of this little psalm is but an amplification of that now the next title is not explicit like that one is that's how this psalm opens Jehovah rohi the next one is not explicit but it is certainly implicit in the next little expression and David says I shall not want I shall not well that of course is the great title Jehovah Jireh and you remember you get that back in Genesis 22 and in Genesis 22 uh you remember Abraham he called the name of the place Jehovah Jireh and that means that the Lord will see and will provide and if the Lord sees and provides then we say very simply I shall not want so sometimes we can't understand the greatness of Jehovah and we can't understand the greatness of divine titles but we can understand this simple practical import of it that if the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want every believer can understand that and we bow in the good of that this evening now I like what the little girl said about it and unwittingly she gave a very interesting commentary on this little portion she was set to learn this psalm the story says and she struggled with it for a good wee while and then decided that she knew it and she would like to repeat it and when they asked her to repeat it then she said the Lord is my shepherd and then she got stuck a little bit and and her next comment was what more do I want and you know that really is after all the meaning and the import of this lovely expression the Lord is my shepherd what more do I want I shall not want says David and that is Jehovah Ruhai he sees and he provides and what a lovely thing that while he may not provide all that we want he may not provide all that we wish for we do have the promise that he will meet all our needs my God shall supply all your needs that is Jehovah Jireh and so we rest in that now the next title if I would be allowed to have a favorite title of Jehovah I think the next one would be that and again it is implicit in in the verse 2 he maketh me to lie down and the margins of most bibles now will change this a little bit and it will read in pastures of tender grass he leadeth me beside and again your margin may well say waters of quietness and when you put all that together and try to visualize the scene he maketh me to lie down I don't know I was going to say I don't know anything about sheep I don't know much about sheep but I would imagine that that the sheep will lie down when they are satisfied I think that they will lie down when they are content and when I try to visualize this scene of the sheep lying down in pastures of tender grass and being quietly led beside the waters of quietness well the next title is certainly absolutely fitting here and it is Jehovah shalom Jehovah shalom now that word shalom of course means peace our old testament is full of it you hear it everywhere in Israel I think it's maybe the nicest word in any vocabulary that lovely word shalom now it's a greeting in Israel has ever been from the days when the Lord Jesus stood in the midst of his disciples in that upper room and said I'm sure he said shalom he said peace be unto you and it's older than that it goes a way back and when you have that ancient blessing of Moses the Lord blessed thee and keep thee you know that lovely blessing at the end of Numbers chapter 6 that blessing ends and give thee shalom it's the same word again when the Lord Jesus has prophesied in the prophecy of Isaiah that great verse which says his name shall be called wonderful counselor mighty God everlasting father and prince of shalom it's the same word again and the old testament is absolutely full of that lovely word shalom and today it is still a very much used greeting in Israel now a little thing that I noticed very recently I thought it was very beautiful perhaps I should have noticed it long ago but I only noticed it maybe two weeks ago and I thought it was very beautiful when they meet you in Israel they say shalom and you say shalom and when they leave you after a conversation they say shalom and you say shalom if they meet you on the Sabbath they say Shabbat shalom Shabbat shalom but if they meet you on a very special occasion or if they meet you maybe unexpectedly and they're so very glad to see you maybe haven't seen you for a while and it's a very special greeting what they say in Israel is this they say shalom shalom and they refer to it as the double shalom now here's a lovely thing I think it is Isaiah 26 thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stead on thee now that word perfect is not there I'm very very literally translated you know what that verse says thou will keep him in shalom shalom it's the double shalom and if you look some Hebrew text sometime or other you find that that is true but to translate that literally into English of course is not possible you can't say thou will keep him in peace peace that doesn't make sense but shalom shalom makes sense and so to make it sensible in English the translators have put it that way thou will keep him in perfect peace but it is actually the ancient double greeting the double shalom thou will keep him in shalom shalom now the word means peace and a very beautiful word it is well how interesting it would be to stay and try to apply this to all our hearts in the meeting this evening hearts that are troubled hearts that are heavy and the Lord Jesus stands tonight in the midst of his bewildered people just like he did in those days those men were bewildered their little world had fallen down around them they couldn't understand it so said the two in the way to a mess they couldn't understand it couldn't start it out they couldn't at all work out just what was happening or why it was happening and the Lord comes into their midst and he says shalom he seems to breathe peace into bewildered hearts and I trust that he does the same for you this evening I trust that you'll hear him say shalom and that contented with his will you'll be able to rest in the green pastures at the waters of quietness may Jehovah shalom be your portion this evening he restores my soul now we come to one that's a little bit perhaps strange and hard to pronounce but it is the great title Jehovah Rufika and you get that back in Exodus chapter 15 R-O-P-H-E-K-A Jehovah Rufika and this simply means I am the Lord that healeth thee and so you'll find it in Exodus 15 well we were speaking of this last night when we talked about that restoring ministry of the Lord Jesus that gentle ministry of restoration and here certainly we have it here and which of us does not need at some time or other the ministry of Jehovah Rufika he restores my soul the Lord that healeth thee restoring us when we tend to stray our sheep often do now a familiar one he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake and this is the one that we sing in that great hymn of Murray McShane's and we sing Jehovah said can you and Jehovah said can you is the Lord our righteousness and he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness but this word paths is a very interesting thing because I understand that the thought is really that these are carriage tracks if you like they are ruts ruts you know it's not always good to be in a rut but here are ruts that are good here here are here is the idea of the carriage tracks you know that have been made by by the wheels of the carriage that somehow are in the path so often that now well there are two great ruts you see and the carriage really can't get out of this oh that we were like that with righteousness that it would become our normal way of living that we would find it difficult to live any other way difficult to get out of the ruts of righteousness that it should become our norm our way of life as believers instinctively walking in the paths of righteousness he lead of me in the carriage tracks of righteousness and remember to that in the book of Jeremiah this is exactly what is meant by the old paths and we must be careful that we don't use that in any restricted kind of way because when Jeremiah called the people back to the old paths what he was calling them back to was righteous living righteous living and when we are called back here to the paths of righteousness it's the very same thing and it is Jehovah said can you see we are righteous in the glory in his sight we are righteous and what we are up there before him we ought to be down here before men and it ought to be our normal way of living the paths of righteousness now we come to another one which is hard to pronounce and hard to remember and it is a great title Jehovah Mecca this time now although it's very strange and unfamiliar you find it very very often in the Old Testament you get it in Exodus 31 you get it again and again the book of Leviticus and you get it in the book of Ezekiel and it simply means the Lord that sanctified thee I am the Lord that sanctified thee and when you go down to the end of verse four thy rod and thy staff here perhaps is his word thy rod and thy staff continually sanctifying separating comforting protecting guiding his people and keeping them a people apart for himself here's a sheep going astray out of the path and the shepherd's rod brings it back correction maybe correction here's another sheep and has gotten itself into difficulties in a crevice you know and he uses the staff the rod and he brings it out he rescues it from its difficulties so there is not only correction but there's comfort here but whether it is correction or comfort it is always with the idea of keeping the sheep sanctified apart for himself so we are the sheep of his pasture and the Lord and the staff of Jehovah Mechadishkan keeps us a people separate for himself now the last one is this though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death he says thou art with me in the valley of the shadow of death thou art with me then he says surely goodness and mercy all the days of my life while I live you can say that with me and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever in eternity he's with me too and what you might say is that whether it is life or death or eternity well it seems that we are granted his presence always now that last title then is the lovely title Jehovah Shama and Jehovah Shama is the very last expression in the book of Ezekiel the very last little clause in the book of Ezekiel is Jehovah Shama and in our authorized version it is interpreted or translated the Lord is there the Lord is there so whether we are living the Lord is there or even when we pass through the valley of the shadow of death the Lord is there and when we get to the other side of the river and arrive at the house of the Lord then the Lord is there as well so living dying or in eternity it's Jehovah Shama the Lord is there and nothing can rob us of the presence of Jehovah Shama what a shepherd then we have other brethren have put other titles into the psalm as well and I trust that these seven will bring out to us the greatness of the shepherd who is Jesus of John 10 I repeat but Jehovah of the Old Testament the suffering one of the psalm that's passed and the enthroned one of the glory that is yet to come and in his present gracious ministry he is as David says my shepherd I trust that we enjoy his shepherd ministry a little bit more may the Lord bless his work