MY SHEPHERD
J. H. Trevvett
It might be helpful to look at the Lord Jesus as our Shepherd, and Psalm 23 suggests itself as presenting Him in this character. This beautiful psalm is perhaps so well known generally that much of its precious detail is lost sight of. It is written in the singular and is the outcome of soul experience. One can think of David leading the sheep and chanting this psalm as thoughts of his great Antitype—Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep—filled his soul.
David’s very pathway and occupation thus produce a yield for God.
Of all the Psalms this one is perhaps the best known. It is called a “Psalm of David”, but it may be learned and sung by each one of us as having known and proved the Lord Jesus as our Shepherd. It does not speak of His official greatness; it bespeaks His heart—what He is and what He does! It is helpful to note the position of the psalm, coming between the abandonment and work of Christ on the cross (Psalm 22) and His millennial glory (Psalm 24). In Psalm 22 there is “the voice of a man”. He is abandoned—suffering for sin from God.
But He is heard, and a threefold circle of responsive affection is secured for God as a result of His work. In Psalm 24 we get the Lord taking His place as King of glory, but Psalm 23 speaks of the same blessed Person known here on earth in every circumstance through which the believer has to pass.
Psalm 22 gives us the good Shepherd laying down His life for the sheep; Psalm 23, the great Shepherd tending and feeding the sheep; Psalm 24 the chief Shepherd seen in exaltation and glory. He will shepherd the nations in that day.
Now if I say “The Lord is my shepherd”, it involves that I am His sheep, and that I am submissive and my will is not in exercise. Such an expression is not to be a beautiful sentiment but a reality: and then what is the effect? “I shall not want”. Often difficulties and trials beset and hinder us, but this word admits of no doubt; “I shall not want”. Now I am free to come under the compulsion and leading of love. “He maketh me to lie down ... he leadeth me ...”. He would have me restful before Him. “My meditation of Him shall be sweet”.
Meditation and prayer are preferable to study—and greater in results. I am at rest in green pastures. In His alluring grace He compels me to lie down—He maketh me. Then He leadeth me beside the still waters. It is all to the end that I may learn Himself. Mary placed herself, in a submissive spirit, at His disposal, and she was led beside still waters. Martha forgot the Shepherd, for she said, “dost thou not care?” Of course He cared, but His delight at that moment lay in leading Mary into rest to hear His word (Luke 10: 38–42). We need to cultivate this kind of abstraction.
Note the shepherd care of Jesus as He said to His disciples after their arduous service, “Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place and rest a
little. For those coming and those going were many, and they had not leisure even to eat”, Mark 6: 31. He is going to feed them according to the integrity of His heart and He is guiding them by the skilfulness of His hands (Psalm 78: 72).
He leads us in that He may lead us out. “He restoreth my soul”, the weariness and pressure of the way are lost sight of, and He leads out now in testimony—the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Our service manward is poor and unworthy if we have not first been restful with Christ. Our Shepherd is sensitive to all that is not consistent with the paths of righteousness. Let us be simple about this—Jesus is our Shepherd; He is set for our good and prosperity. He serves not for wages but in love; what a contrast to the sheep master (2 Kings 3: 4) or the sheep shearer (1 Samuel 25: 2). The false shepherds in Ezekiel 34 served for wages; they ate the fat and clothed themselves with the wool. We have a Shepherd who loves to feed His flock and to strengthen the weak. He knows every sheep and its distinguishing feature. A brother showed me a shepherd on his farm who had the care of four hundred sheep and lambs, and he said the shepherd knew every one because of certain marks, and could tell which were missing. I thought of our Shepherd as having tended and succoured myriads of sheep and knowing each one severally because He had died for each.
Shepherd instincts and care contribute to promotion amongst the saints and also to their prosperity. God took David from the sheepfolds, from following the ewes great with young, and made him to be the leader of His people. There are two features with a shepherd—he can follow the sheep and he can lead. Following has a generation in view, but leading is to promote the knowledge of the heart of God and the mind of Christ. “He leadeth
me beside the still waters” and would there make divine thoughts known to me. What a Shepherd He is! Nothing can alarm the sheep if they are near Him—if straying they are exposed to danger.
‘In His presence we are happy,
In His presence we’re secure’.
His eyes are upon the sheep. How He follows the movements of the man in John 9 and eventually leads him into the flock. Forsaken of parents, despised by neighbours, cast out by the religious leaders, he is found by Jesus. Surely he would say, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want”. Then in John 10 he finds green pastures.
A sheep either follows or strays. A sick sheep gets away alone, and we have seen such, alas! a brother or sister who nurses a grievance and keeps away from the brethren. We need the features of our great Shepherd to recover such. “He leadeth me”. People say, ‘I am so easily led’, they usually mean led in a wrong direction. Why not let Him lead? Under such leading (Psalm 23: 4) I can “walk through the valley of the shadow of death” without fear. The same One who lay in the dust of death in Psalm 22 now supports me even in death’s valley. But it is only the shadow of death. I am no longer held in bondage. The One who shepherds me through has become the Lord even of death. The enemy would discourage us with the shadow of death, but he has been robbed of the substance by the Lord, who says, “Fear not ... I ... have the keys of death and of hades”, Revelation 1: 17, 18. The public testimony of verse 3 may be followed by persecution, trial, even death (as in v.4), as suffering for righteousness, but before the pressure comes He has calmed my soul beside the still waters.
I met an ungodly soldier in France—a lad of 19—and I asked if He had a Christian mother. He said, ‘Yes’. Then I asked what she had told him to read in times of difficulty and danger, and he said, ‘Something about the valley of the shadow of death’, but he did not know where it was. We sat down together in the presence of about two hundred wicked men and read this psalm. A day or two after he confessed Christ, and a few weeks later was killed in battle. He had gained the knowledge of the Shepherd who would sustain him even in the valley of the shadow of death.
This verse has been a comfort to many; but what about “thy rod and thy staff”, His control over me and His support for me? They go together and the psalmist speaks in the plural now, “they comfort me”. Would we covet the staff without the rod? We can know His support only as being controlled by Him. Comfort follows obedience and “His commandments are not grievous”.
“Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies”. What a triumph! A table
‘furnished’ even on earth. Thus He would set us up in power and as nourished by Himself.
“Thou hast anointed my head with oil”. Are we true to the oil? If so, the effect is seen. “My cup runneth over”. There is now the overflowing of what has been enjoyed inwardly. Do not let us be stoical or seek to suppress spiritual emotions. We have an outlet for these, to God first and then to man. Many of us lack the simplicity which the true knowledge of God would give us.
Now the Psalmist reaches a most blessed conclusion. “Surely goodness and loving-kindness shall follow me all the days of my life”. So all is well, past, present, and future, all in the hands of our great Shepherd. We can ‘praise Him for all that is past’, but there is more; we can ‘trust Him for all that’s to come’. Jacob could speak of “The God that shepherded me all my life long to this day” (Genesis 48: 15), and he could look on to the future whilst blessing the sons of Joseph. ‘Surely goodness and loving-kindness shall follow me”, there is no doubt now as to the future.
After this psalm is known we can claim the whole earth for the Lord (Psalm 24). The Shepherd of Psalm 23 is none less than the King of glory. Do our hearts rise to it now? All power is in His hands and we look on to the day when He shall have His rightful place; meanwhile how comforting is His service to us. ‘We love the Shepherd’s voice’; “He calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out”, but never into a place where He cannot go with them, for “He goeth before them”. The results of His shepherd care were seen in Peter, how jealously the Lord looked on him. He is ultimately commissioned to “shepherd my sheep” and his work and his epistles show how true he was to that commission. Then as having imbibed the spirit of his Master he desires a succession of shepherds, not in name but in character (1 Peter 5). Peter exhorts the elders to shepherd the flock of God. Paul counsels the elders at Miletus to shepherd the assembly of God. Both Peter and Paul had learned from the good Shepherd how to shepherd the saints. Both alike, too, could desire that shepherding be continued amongst the people of God, and this can only be as we learn Christ as the good Shepherd, the great Shepherd, and the chief Shepherd.
The good Shepherd gave His life for the sheep (John 10: 11). The great Shepherd is a risen Christ tending His own on earth (Hebrews 13: 20). The chief Shepherd waits to reward every faithful under-shepherd (1 Peter 5: 4).
(Jottings from a reading, date and place unknown. Some quotations are from the Authorised Version).